Lecture 15 reading

After proximity was noticed as an important factor, was it furtehr explored and tested?

Yes

Remote location condition

• learner seated in adjacent room and not visible, no vocal complaints from learner were heard 

  • no subject stopped obeying before 300 volts 

  • most subjects were fully obedient and ever up all the way 

  • shows that propensity to obey authroity can override morals

Voice-Feedback condition

• learner was still in a separate room out of sight of teh teacher but now prerecorded complaints corresponding to each shock level were added

  • resulted in a slight decrease in obedience levels 

proximity condition

• the distance between teacher and learner further reduced, learner just a couple feet away, provides vocal and visual evidence

  • obedience drops to less than half

touch proximity condition

• to receive the shock, learner had to put his hand on shock plate and when he refused, experimenter forced

  • Drops to 30%

Bruno Battas

• specifically brutal participant

• learner begs him to stop and teacher acts in a robotic dehu way

debated what is the stronger determinant of a persons behaviour, his personality or situation?

• situationists would cite Milgram 

• situation takes on a bigger role in social psyc

Are all ppl equally obedient?

No, some ppl are more willing than otehrs

• Some vocalized that si was wrong but didnt do anything 

• the earlier in a procedure a subject showed resistance, more likely he was to be defiant 

  • Reduces pressure to rationalize in order to resolve cognitive dissonancd

2 factors that operate to help the subject free himself from authroities grip

• ability to empathize with the learner

  • defying experimenter is hard bc he presents as competant 

  • by empathizing, subject does not have no condemn learner to stop

• experimenter's unresponsiveness to questions or objections 

  • Makes the subject stubborn

Most helpful thing to free subject from authorities grip

• 2 peers also speaking up

Legitmacy of the organization

• when the experiment was dissociated from Yale, there was a slight drop in obedience but almost half ppl still complied 

• these harmful commands dont even have to come from a legitimate authority to be obeyed

  • Just the setting of a lab makes ppl obedient 

Alan Elms

• first person to help Milgram with the obedience experiments

Who did Milgram refer to as his main scientific influence

Soloman Asch