Obedience

Question 1

What is obedience?

Answer 1

A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order usually from an authority figure who has power to punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming

Question 2

Who designed a procedure to test obedience?

Answer 2

Milgram

Question 3

Outline Milgram’s baseline procedure

Answer 3

• 40 males volunteered to take part
• randomly assigned P’s to role of ‘learner’ or ‘teacher’ (actually fixed)
• Naïve participant always got role of teacher
• an experimenter was also involved dressed in a grey lab coat
• experimenter ordered P’s to give a strong shock to learner located in another room (15-450V fake)

Question 4

What were Milgram’s baseline findings?

Answer 4

• all P’s delivered shocks up to 300 V
• 12.5% stopped at 300 volt
• 65% went up to 450v
• also collected qualitative data using observations
• P’s showed signs of extreme tensions e.g. sweat. tremble, seizure

Question 5

Other data of Milgram’s study

Answer 5

• before study Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the participants behaviour , estimated 3% will go to 450V
• P’s in baseline were debriefed, in follow up questionnaire 84% happy to have taken part

Question 6

What were Milgram’s conclusions?

Answer 6

• that German people are not ‘different’.
• The American participants in his study were willing to obey orders even if they might harm another person

Question 7

What is a strength of Milgram’s study?

Answer 7

• research support
• Findings replicated in a French documentary> focused on a game show made especially for the programme
• p’s in game believed they were contestants in pilot episode for a new show
• paid to give fake electric shock (ordered by presenter) to other p’s (actors) in front of studio audience
• 80% delivered maximum shock of 460V to an unconscious man
• findings of M not just due to special circumstances

Question 8

What is a limitation of Milgram’s study?

Answer 8

• may have not been testing what it intended to test
• Orne & Holland argued p’s behaved the way they did because they didn’t believe set up -‘play-acting’
• Perry confirmed this> she listened to tapes of Milgram’s p’s & reported that only about 1/2 believed shocks were real
• 2/3 of these p’s were disobedient
• p’s may have been responding to demand characteristics.

Question 9

What is another limitation of Milgram’s study?

Answer 9

• ethical issues
• p’s were deceived > thought the allocation of teacher and learner was random but in fact it was fixed
• also thought the shocks were real >Led p’s to feel psychologically distressed

Question 10

What is a counterpoint for the ethical issues in Milgram’s study?

Answer 10

• behaviour wouldn’t be natural if they knew aims
• could be argued the benefits outweigh the costs
• Milgram’s studies can be justified on the grounds of what we have learnt
  ‘the dangers of blind obedience’
• Milgram also debriefed his p’s & 84% said they were glad to have participated

Question 11

Why does Milgram’s study lack population validity?

Answer 11

• Milgram used 40 white, American males
• findings cannot be generalised to other populations e.g. females
• not known whether females would also show high levels of obedience to authority