Psychology Social Influence: Obedience

Conformity is a change in behaviour due to real/imagined pressure, whereas obedience is following an order, so a change in behaviour but due to an authority figure.

Aim: To see the extent to which participants will obey an authority figure when punishing an individual.
Procedure: Milgram used 40 male participants in his study, ages 20-50. He advertised it in newspapers and through flyers in the post, describing it as a memory study. They were offered $4.50 to take part. Upon arrival to the lab, the participant was to draw out their role. The confederate, 'Mr Wallace', always ended up as the learner whereas the real participant always ended up being the teacher. The learner was strapped in a chair in another room, wired with electrodes. The teachers was to read out word pairs, and a shock was to be given to the learner upon each mistake or no answer. The shocks ranged from 15V-450V, going up in intervals of 30. After 315V, there was no further response from the learner. The experimenter used 4 different prods to keep the teacher from drawing out from the experimenter: 'please continue', 'the experiment requires that you continue', 'it is absolutely essential that you continue' and 'you have no other choice, you must go on'.
Results: No participants stopped below 300V, 12.5% stopped at 300, 65% contnued to 450V. Participants showed extreme tension, sweat, groan, biting nails, three had seizures. They were debriefed afterwards and 84% said they were glad to participate.
Conclusion: Participants will obey the demands of an authority figure most of the time, even if it means going against their morals and harming someone else.

-Low internal validity. Orne and Holland argued that the participants behaved in this way because they guessed the shocks weren't real, so Milgram wasn't really testing what he was meant to test. Sheridan and King carried out a similar study but with puppies, and despite real shocks, 54% male student participants and 100% of the females delivered a fatal shock. This suggest the effects of Milgram's study were genuine.
-Good external validity. Milgram argued that the lab environment accurately reflected wider authority relationships in real life.Hofling et al.'s study with the nurses (21/22 obeying) supports this. This suggests his research is generalisable.
-Research has been replicated. The Game of Death made participants believe they were contestants for a new game show, and they were paid to give electric shocks. This confirmed Milgram's results - 80% delivered the maximum 460V, and the extreme tension was almost identical.
-Social Identity Theory suggests that when obedience levels fell, participants identified less with the science and more with the victim. Haslam and Reicher analysed the prods used - the first three don't demand obedience but help for science, whereas the final one demands obedience.
-Ethical Issues. Milgram lied to the participants about the purpose of the study, and made them think the learner/teacher allocation was random when it was fixed. The most significant deception were the shocks, betraying the trust and damaging the reputation of the psychologist.

After carrying out his original study, Milgram wanted to investigate which situational variables might create greater or lesser obedience.

In the proximity variation, the teacher and the learner were in the same room. Obedience dropped from 65% to 40%. In a further variation of proximity, the teacher forced the learner's hand onto the plate. This variation found a further reduction to 30%. In the last proximity variation, the experimenter left the room and gave instructions through telephone. The outcome was obedience drop to 20.5%.

Milgram has also changed the location of the study. When it was carried out in a run-down building rather than the prestigious university, obedience fell from 65% to 47.5%. In this situation, the experimenter had less authority.

Lastly, Milgram carried out a variation in which the experimenter was called away due to a telephone call at the start of the procedure. The role of the experimenter was taken over by an 'ordinary member of the public', really played by a confederate, in regular clothes rather than a lab coat. This variation showed the lowest obedience levels, at 20%.

-Research support. Bickman carried out a field experiment where each experimenter each took turn dressing as a guard, civilian and a milkman. They gave orders to passers-by, and found that people were twice as likely to obey the confederate dressed as a guard rather than a civilian. This supports Milgram's conclusion that uniform conveys authority.
-Lack of internal validity. Orne and Holland argued during the original study that many participants were responding to demand charateristics. It is more likely for this to hapen in the variations, for example when the experimenter was replaced by an 'ordinary member of the public'. This makes it difficult to draw conclusions.
-Cross-cultural replications support Milgram. Miranda et al. found an obedience rate of over 90% in Spanish students, showing that the findings not only apply to American males. However, Smith and Bond argued that the replications only take part in Western, developed societies, so the results can't be generalised.
-High control of variables. Milgram only altered one variable at a time to see what effect it would have on the levels of obedience, with all other procedures and variables being kept the same.
-'Obedience alibi' criticism. Milgram's findings supporting situational explanations have been criticised by David Mandel who argued that it offers an excuse for evil behaviour. It would be offensive to the victims of the Holocaust to suggest Nazis were only obeying orders.