Obedience: Milgrams research

what is obediance

Obedience: A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order from a perceived authoritative figure.

• The implication is that the person would not otherwise have responded in this way without the order

Milgrams Obediance experiment

Aim: To find out whether ordinary people, not just German soldiers in the Second World War, would obey an authority figure even if the figure was unjust and they were required to injure another person.

Procedure:

• 40 male participants volunteered for a study on how punishment affects learning at Yale University.

• During the study, there were two confederates: an experimenter (the authority figure) and a learner.

• The participant acted as the teacher and was told to administer increasingly strong electric shocks to the learner each time he made a mistake on a learning task.

• The learner, sitting in another room, gave mainly wrong answers and received fake electric shocks starting from 15 volts and going up to 450 volts in 15-volt steps.

• If the teacher felt unsure about continuing, the experimenter used a sequence of prods, which were repeated if necessary, such as "please continue" and "the experiment requires that you continue."

Findings:

• 65% of participants continued to the highest level of 450 volts.

• Participants showed signs of extreme tension, such as sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lip, etc.

• Three participants even passed out.

Conclusion:

• Ordinary people will obey authority even if they know what they're doing is wrong

Evaluation of Milgrams study: Strength

Evaluation of Milgrams study: Weakness