Flashcards
Obedience
Cards in this deck (8)
- 1Key Study: MILGRAM (1963)- 40 participants (2 confeds)
- Participant = teacher (fixed)
- 15 volts (start), and increased after each incorrect answer up to a max. of 450 volts
> Learner went silent at 300 volts
- Series of 4 prods when the participants asked to stop
- 65% went to 450 volts / 12.5% stopped at 300 volts - 2Situational Factors in ObedienceProximity
- Teacher and learner were seated in the same room = Obedience fell to 40%
> Teacher saw the learner's anguish directly
- Touch proximity = Obedience fell to 30%
- Most participants defied the experimenter and only 12 continued to the maximum voltage - 3Situational Factors in ObedienceLocation
- The original study was conducted at Yale
> Gave the participants confidence in the integrity of the people involved
- Variation conducted in a run-down office
> Obedience dropped to 48% - 4Situational Factors in ObedienceUniform
- Bushman (1988) used a female researcher in different clothes and stopped people in the street to give a man money for an expired parking meter.
> Police uniform = 72%
> Business-wear = 48%
> Beggar = 52% - 5EvaluationEthical issues
> Deception - participants could not give informed consent
> Right to withdraw - Participants were free to leave at any time but the prods made participants feel obliged to carry on - 6EvaluationExternal Validity - Alibi
> Mandel (1998) challenged the obedience research as an explanation of real-life atrocities.
> Poland (1942) - Reserve Police Battalion received orders for a mass killing of Jews.
- Commanding officer gave an alternative, the majority carried out the killing without protest. - 7EvaluationHistorical Validity
- the original experiment was carried out over 50 years ago
- Blass (1999) carried out a statistical analysis of all of Milgram's obedience work conducted between 1961 and 1985
> Correlational analysis found no relationship - no increase or decrease - 8EvaluationInfluence of Gender
> Underestimated the importance of individual differences in obedience.
> Women were more susceptible to social influence than men - Eagly (1978)
> Variation - female participants - self-reported tension was much higher but obedience was the same as in men