Psychology

Point: Research support

Evidence: Field experiment conducted to demonstrate how these situational variables influence obedience. Bickman (1974) had 3 confederates dress in 3 diff outfits- jacket and tie, milkman's outfit and a security guard uniform. The confederates stood in streets and asked passer-bys to perform a task. E.g picking up letter. The findings were that people were twice liekly to obey security guard than the one dressed in a jacket and tie.

Explanation: This therefore is a strength as it confirms that situational variables such as: uniform does influence the level of obedience, as obediences increases when the type of uniform convey a certain authority, one much higher rank than the other, increasing obedience. As stated by Milgram.

Point: This study lacks internal validity

Evidence: Orne and Holland's criticised Migrams' study saying is was subjected to demand characteristics and that they realised the procedure was fake. This could be because of the extra manipulation the conferderates used. Even Milgram worked out that the situation was so contrived that the ppts may have worked it out.

Explanation: This therefore, reduces the internal validity as the ppts may have saw through deception acted accorindgly. So it isn't clear whether the results were actually due to obedience.

Point: Milgram's study have been replicated in other cultures so the variations made can be applied.

Evidence: Miranda et al found an obedience rate of over 90% amongst Spanish students.

Explanation: This suggests that his variations and his findings can be applied to other cultures, and are not limited to only American male, but are valid across cultrues and too females too.

Counter evidence: However, Smith and Bond criticised the findings and said that the two cultures are not that different too each other, as the study was conducted is Western, developed societies (Spain and Australia), so is would be inaccurate to assume that obedience levels are the same culturally to people everywhere.

Point: Milgram' controlled his variables.

Evidence: Milgram's variations were systematicaly altered one at a time to see what effect it would have on the level of obedience. All the other preocedures and variables were kept the same as the study was replicated over again, with more than 1000 participants in total.

Explanation: This therefore is a strength as milgram controlled his variables and replicated his study to ensure it was accurate. This increases its reliability as well as reproducability as others such as miranda et al having replicated it.