Milgram electroshock study

what is obedience

acting in response to a direct order from an authority figure

what was Milgram’s aim

to investigate the extent to which individuals would obey an authority figure

what was milgram’s method 

• 40 male pps ages between 20-50 from a range of professions (paid $4.50 to participate)

• pps told it was an experiment to see the effects of punishment on learning 

• it was fixed so pps were given role of '“Teacher” whilst a confederate had the role of “Learner”

• role of experimenter was played by an actor 

• learner and teacher were in separate rooms. learner had to answer questions, every time they got one wrong teacher had to deliver an electric shock

• voltage started at 15V (slight shock) and increased in 15V increments to 450 V (danger severe shock)

• when the teacher shows reluctancfe to continue he was given 4 profs before he was allowed to leave 

what were the findings 

• all pps went to 300V

• 65% of pps went to 450V four times 

• pps displayed visible signs of distress including trembling, lip bitting

what were Milgram’s conclusions

• obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the way we are brought up

• ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being 

what were the four evaluation points 

1. supporting research - Hofling 

2. lack of internal valid - Perry, but Sheridan and King 

3. external validity

4. ethics

evaluation - supporting research Hofling

P: supporting research comes from a field experiment by Hofling et al on a hospital ward

E: they studied how the nurses respponded to unjustified demands from doctors such as giving twice the recommended dosage of a drug to a patient 

E: they found high levels of obedience as 21 out of 22 nurses obeyed the doctor 

L: this adds external validity to Milgram’s experiment - a factor he was criticised for lacking in his original lab based study 

evaluation - lack of internal valid

P: As well as external validity, Milgram’s work has also been criticised for lacking internal validity as it has been suggested that his pps did not truly believe they were delivering the shocks 

E: this was reinforced by the work of Perry who analysed tape recordings from the experiment and found many pps expressed doubts about the authenticity of the task

E: However, Sheridan and King conducted a study in which real puppies were genuinely shocked and found equally high levels of obedience (20/26)

L: this suggests that, contrary to popular belief, pps in Milgram’s study genuinely believed they were giving the shocks 

evaluation - external validity

P: another reason Milgram was criticised was for his lack of population validity as he used all males

E: there may be gender differences in obedience levels with women more/ less likely to obey

E: this is supported by the findings of th Sheridan and King study where 100% of women obeyed and only 54% of men did

L: this would suggest Milgram was wrong to exclude females. Yet, when he replicated his study on women he found they gave the same level of obedience

evaluation - ethics

P: Milgram has been viciously criticised for his lack of consideration of ethics 

E: he decided the pps about the fact they were not actually delivering electric shocks and this had a knock on effect on informed consent 

E: additionally he did not protect his pps from psychological harm as they experienced trauma in delivering the shocks and humiliation upon finding out the extent of the deceit 

L: although this is not acceptable and such research would never be approved today, in Milgram’s defence understanding obedience is not possible without putting pp in these difficult situations