Milgram baseline study

Sample

• 40 men

• 20-50 y/o

• New Haven USA

• Volunteer sample - advertisement

• unskilled workers to professionals and educated

Sample strength

Varied as had unskilled to skilled workers and a range of ages (20-50)

representative, gen

Sample weakness

• only male

• all volunteered

• all New Haven USA

• no one above 50 y/o

• unrepresentative not gen

Procedure (validity)

• lab at Yale university

• 2 confederates

• Told to administer shocks to learner to help with memory task

• participant always given role of the teacher

• Deceived, thought shocks were real but they weren’t

procedure (validity) strength

Ppts not told true aim of study

Deception reduces demand characteristics

increase internal validity of findings that most people will obey destructive orders from authority figures , accurate

Procedure (validity) weakness

• Artificial setting - Yale lab

• Unnatural behaviour, lack ecological validity

Procedure (standardisation)

• ppts individually brought into the lab by experimenter who followed script

• ppt could hear learner ‘crying out’ when shocked

• 300v learner heard saying ‘that’s enough get me out of here’

• if ppt objected to giving shocks, experimenter encourage them using prods

Procedure (standardisation) strength

• Roles of ppt as teacher and confederate as learner always the same

• Set script always used

• Responses from learner pre-recorded

• Replicable, compare to check for consistency, increasing reliability

Procedure (standardisation) weakness

prods use were not always the same, deviated from script on occasion

lack reliability

Aim

To see if ordinary people would carry out a destructive order from an authority figure

Results

65% ppts obeyed to 450v and 100% obeyed to 300v

Conclusion

Most people will obey a destructive order from a legitimate authority figure

Aim, results, conclusion strength

Application

Tarnow 2000

Improve pilot training to encourage first officers to challenge authority of pilot when they’re in error

Tarnow believes this could prevent up to 20% of plane crashes

Milgram’s research has influenced training methods

Aim, results, conclusion weakness

Not all ppts continued to give the highest shock

35% didn’t

Questions effectiveness of applying to society