mailgrams original study

Obedience

where somebody acts in response to a direct order from an authority figure

describe the ps in this study

Milgram investigated obedience using 40 men aged 20-50 from a range of occupations who volunteered to take part in a study on learning and memory.

where did it take place

The study took place at Yale University.

what happened in the study when ps arrived

The participant was paid $4.50 for their time and then introduced to another ‘participant’ who was really a stooge. They were told that the experiment was concerned with the effects of punishment on learning and that they would draw lots to decide who would be teacher and who would be learner. In fact, the draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher.

The teacher was then taken to another room and seated in front of a shock generator. The shocks ranged from 15 volts to 450 volts (XXX) in 15 volt intervals. The job of the teacher was to test the learner on word pairs and every time a mistake was made to deliver a shock beginning at 15 volts and moving one level higher as necessary. The teacher was given a sample 45 volt shock before the study started so that they would think it was real.

The learner did not really receive any shocks but just acted as if he did. At 315 volts the learner let out a violent scream and at 330 volts there was complete silence. If the teacher hesitated in giving a shock, the experimenter had a list of verbal prods which could be used such as ‘the experiment requires that you continue’.

how many people went to 300 volts

all

what percent went to full volts

65%

what observation did they observe in ps

sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips, groaning, digging fingernails into their hands and 3 had “full-blown uncontrollable seizures”.

One limitation is that may be demand characteristics

As the study was a laboratory experiment at Yale University, it has low ecological validity meaning that it doesn’t explain how people might obey in real life. In addition, Orne and Holland argued that Ps behaved the way they did due to demand characteristics, doubting that the shocks they were providing were actually real but that Milgram simply required them to continue (social desirability). This would decrease the internal validity of the study, especially as Perry also reviewed tapes from the study and reported that many of the Ps expressed their doubts about the shocks. Rosenhan found that 70% of participants did believe the set-up. This would dispute criticisms that suggest the participants were simply displaying demand characteristics that lower the internal validity of the study.

One limitation is that there are ethical issues

The study suffers from a number of ethical issues, most notably protection of Ps (people may have suffered anxiety at the thought of potentially having killed someone), deception and lack of informed consent (they were told it was a study on learning and memory, not obedience) and right to withdraw (prods used by experimenter discouraged people leaving). However, a counter-argument to the issue of deception is that Ps couldn’t have been told it was a study of obedience without incurring demand characteristics which would have threatened the internal validity.

One strength is evidence in support

Rosenhan found that 70% of participants believed the experimental set-up was genuine, which challenges criticisms that participants were merely responding to demand characteristics. If most participants believed the situation was real, their behaviour is more likely to reflect genuine obedience rather than compliance with perceived expectations, thereby strengthening the internal validity of the study. This conclusion is further supported by Sheridan and King’s research, in which 54% of male participants and 100% of female participants administered what they believed were real electric shocks to a puppy. As participants were unlikely to suspect the procedure was fake due to the ethical implications involved, this provides strong evidence that obedience in such studies cannot be fully explained by demand characteristics alone.