Obedience: Milgram's Research

Obedience

- A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order

- The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority

Aim

- Milgram (1963) wanted to know why the German population had followed the orders of Hitler and committed awful acts during the Second World War

- He wanted to know if Germans were more obedient

Procedure

- Milgram recruited 40 male participants through newspaper adverts and flyers in the post, who thought they were taking part in a study about memory. These participants were given the role of 'teacher' through a fixed draw. The participants, or 'teachers', were ordered to give shocks to a learner, which in this case was a confederate, by an experimenter. Shocks increased 15 volts with each mistake made by the learner on a memory task, up to 450 volts

- The participants were unaware of the fact that the shocks were not real

Findings

- No participants stopped before 300 volts. 65% went all the way to the top of the shock scale, which is 450 volts. Many participants showed signs of emotional distress and stress, most objected but continued anyway. A prior survey, answered by 14 psychology students, asking to predict the participant's behaviour resulted in the students estimating that no more than 3% of the participants would continue to 450 volts

Conclusion

- The American participants in Milgram's study were willing to obey orders even when they might harm another person. Milgram suspected there were other certain factors in the situation that encouraged obedience, so he decided to conduct further studies to investigate these

- In line with the aim of the study, Milgram concluded that German people were not 'different' and not more obedient

Evaluation- Strengths

- There is research support for Milgram's findings, replicated in a French documentary (Beauvois et al 2012). Participants in a 'game' believed they were contestants in an episode for a new show. They were paid to give (fake) electric shocks (ordered by the presenter) to other participants (confederates). 80% of the participants delivered the maximum shock of 460 volts. Their behaviour was almost identical to that of Milgram's participants (nervous laughter, signs of anxiety)

- This supports Milgram's original findings about obedience to authority, and demonstrates that the findings were not just due to special circumstances

Evaluation- Weaknesses (1)

• There is low internal validity.

• Orne and Holland (1968) argued that participants behaved as they did because they didn't really believe in the setup, so they were 'play-acting'. Perry's (2013) research confirms this as she listened to tapes of Milgram's participants and reported that only half of them believed the shocks were real. The rest were disobedient

• This suggests that participants may have been responding to demand characteristics, trying to fulfil the aims of the study

• Sheridan and King conducted a study giving puppies real shocks. 54% of men and 100% of women gave what they thought was a fatal shock.

Evaluation: Weaknesses (2)

- Milgram's conclusions about blind obedience may not be justified. Haslam et al (2014) showed that Milgram's participants obeyed when the Experimenter delivered the first three verbal prods. However, every participant who was given the fourth prod ("You have no other choice, you must go on") disobeyed. According to social identity theory, participants in the study only obeyed when they identified with the scientific aims of the research ("The experiment requires that you continue"). When they were ordered to blindly obey an authority figure, they refused

- This shows that SIT may provide a more valid interpretation of Milgram's findings

Strength 2

RWA

Understanding WW2 Germany and future dangerous impact of authoritarian figures and obedience.