Hofling Hospital Study (1966)

Aim
1. More realistic study of Milgrams as it's a field study (in a natural environment) and nurses were unaware they were involved in an experiment.
2. Would a nurse knowingly obey an order from an authoritative figure (a doctor) even though it would break hospital rules and be potentially life threatening.
Method
1. The procedure involved a naturalistic field experiment involving 22 (real) night nurses. Dr. Smith (a stooge) phones the nurses at the hospital (on 22 separate occasions) and asked them to check to see if they have the drug astoten.
2. When the nurses checked they could see that the maximum dosage was 10mg.
3. When they reported to the 'Doctor', they were told to administer 20mg pf the drug to a patient called Mr. Jones. Dr. Smith was in a desperate hurry and he would sign the authorisation from when he came to see Mr. Jones later on.
4. The nurses were watched to see what they would do. The medication was not real, though the nurses thought it was.
5. Rules
  1. They are not allowed to accept interactions over the phone.
  2. The dose was double the maximum limit stated on the box.
  3. The medicine itself was unauthorised, i.e not on the ward stock list.
Results
Evaluation
1. Strength
  1. Natural environment means high ecological validity. Therefore it reflects everyday more realistically than Millgram
2. Weakness
  1. No control over extraneous variables meaning you can't really determine cause and effect.

Resource summary

	Created by maya_briglia about 10 years ago