Situational Variables Affecting Obedience

Situational Variables Affecting Obedience

1. Milgram (1963)

   • studied obedience - if people will administer electric shocks to someone in another room if told to, didn't actually recieve shocks was confederate so was experimenter
   • Although they protested, 24/40 (65%) went to full 450V shock when told to, none disobeyed before 300V only 5 refused to go on past 300V
   • obedience fell from 65% to 21% when instructions issued over the phone
   • Obedience also decreased when experimenter didn't wear uniform ( labcoat)
   • recruited through newspaper advert - volunteer sampling told it was testing memory, learner memorised list of word pairs, participant read allowed one word and list of four options for paired word

2. Evaluation

   • Didn't believe shocks were real
     • despite learner cried in pain, experimenter remained cold
     • could've caused participants to feel no real harm was occurring
     • low internal validity as if deception didn't work then all conclusions about conformity are inavlid
   • Ethical issues
     • e.g. deception, unaware of right to withdraw, as they were decieved there was no informed consent
     • believed was about effects of punishment on learning
     • Milgram claims they had right to withdraw but prods from experimenter made difficult to leave
     • highlights importance of ethics in psychological research and safeguarding well-being of participants over aims
   • Gender differences overestimated
     • may expect differences, e.g. women conforming more than men
     • Milgram/ Blass - meta analysis of obedience studies(1999) both didn't find any differences
     • Shows gender doesn't impact obedience levels
   • Cannot be applied in real life - low external validity
     • Mandel (1998) situational factors Milgram's research says influence obedience do not occur in real life
     • Despite presence of factors that according to Milgram increase defiance, very few people refused to take part in mass killing of jews in poland
     • situational factors cannot be only explanation for obedience
   • Is over 50 years old may lack temporal validity
     • argued people today would not act in the same way
     • Burger (2009) found levels of obedience almost identical to Milgram
       • Blass (1999) meta analysis found same obedience levels (meta-analysis)
     • Suggests Milgrams findings are still relevant today