Burger 2009 Contemporary study - AO1

Aim

Burger (2009) aimed to test whether people in the 2000s would still obey authority figures as in Milgram’s study, while meeting modern ethical standards.

Sample

He recruited 70 adults aged 21–80 from diverse backgrounds using volunteer sampling in Santa Clara, California, screened them for mental health issues, and paid them $50.

Procedure

Participants were always assigned the role of “Teacher,” while the “Learner” was a confederate who claimed to have heart problems, in the baseline condition. Teachers were instructed to administer shocks from 15V up to 150V, with prerecorded protests from the Learner and verbal prods from the experimenter. The study was stopped at 150V to avoid distress, after which participants were fully debriefed and shown the Learner unharmed. The second condition was a modelled refusal condition where a confederate Teacher refused to continue, leaving the real participant to proceed.

Results

Results showed high obedience in both conditions (around 70%), with no differences across gender, age, education, or ethnicity, and findings closely mirrored Milgram’s.

Conclusion

Suggesting obedience levels had not changed over time and were driven more by situational factors than individual differences.