evaluation on milgram's study

findings applicable to real life

• found that people will obey and go against moral code if under enough pressure to do so → could explain why some events happened e.g. holocaust

used a reliable method w/ controlled observation → replicable, increase reliability

• used standardised procedures (same voice prompts from experimenter, same confederate and experimenter, same lab in yale uni) → can control extraneous variables + identify causal relationship btwn. obedience + authority. study also replicable e.g. Sheridan and King (1972) repeated study with puppies ] increase reliability

suffers from ethnocentrism and androcentrism → limits generalisability

• sample consisted of 40 male Americans →

• America is an individualistic culture and people from collectivist cultures more likely to obey bc. acceptance of social heirarchies

• Sheridan and King (1972) repeated study on males and females who gave real shocks to puppies → 54% males and 100% females gave fatal shocks } men and women have different levels of obedience

broke numerous ethical guidelines

• participants were deceived into believing study was on effect of punishment on learning → couldn’t give informed consent

• right to withdraw was pressured due to experimenter urging participant to continue

• psychological harm done to the participant who believed they were hurting someone