Social Influence - Obedience

Milgram conducted a study to investigate the extent to which individuals will obey a figure of authority even when orders go against their moral principles. His sample consisted of 40  American male volunteers who believed they were taking part in a study on memory. Participants were randomly allocated the role of “teacher” and a confederate given the role of “learner” but the study was rigged so the pps were always teachers and the confederate was always the learner. Another confederate acted as an experimenter dressed in a lab coat who repeated the same 4 prods (e.g “please continue”) whenever the pps were in doubt about continuing the shocks. The experimenter also gave standard instructions such as “an absence of response should be treated as a wrong answer”. The learner was strapped to a chair in another room with wired electrodes. The teacher was required to give the learner increasingly severe shocks each time a mistake was made on a learning task (learning word pairs). The shocks were fake. They ranged from 15V to 450V (labelled as “danger severe shock")  increasing in 15V increments. The experiment carried on until the participant refused to continue or the maximum of 450V was reached. 

Milgram found that all the participants went to at least 300 volts and 65% continued to the maximum of 450 volts. 5% pps stopped at 300 volts (“intense shocks”). Qualitative data in the form of observations was also collected: there were signs of sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips etc. It was reported that 3 pps even had ‘full blown seizures’. All pps were debriefed and assured that their behaviour was normal.  They were also sent a follow-up questionnaire; 84% said they felt glad to have participated.

Milgram concluded that under the right circumstance, ordinary people will obey unjust orders from someone perceived as being a legitimate authority figure. Situational factors cause people to lose their autonomy and become agents of an authority figure. This suggests that it is not evil people who commit crimes but instead it is ordinary people who are simply obeying instructions.

Situational Variables in Milgram’s study include:

Proximity - when the learner and teacher were in the same room, obedience rates dropped from 65% to 45% because the teacher was able to see the direct consequences of their actions. In another variation the experimenter gave instructions from a telephone in another room, the vast majority defied the experimenter with only 20.5% continuing to 450v and also faking the level of shocks given. In a touch proximity condition,obedience dropped to 30%

Uniform - Uniform can convey power and authority and this impacts obedience. In the original study the experimenter wore a lab coat. In one variation the experimenter was called away and the role was taken over by someone wearing ordinary clothes. Obedience dropped to 20%.

Location - The study was carried out at Yale university, this location gave participants confidence that the study was legit and they trusted the experimenters more. Another study was carried out at a less prestigious location in a run down office,o bedience rates dropped slightly to 48% administering the 450v.

A strength of Milgram’s study is that it has high external validity even though it was conducted in a laboratory. Milgram explained that the central feature of the situation was the relationship between the authority figure and the participant. Milgram argued that the lab environment accurately reflected wider authority in real life. This is a strength because the processes of obedience to authority figures in this study can be generalised to other situations. For example, Hofling et al studied nurses on a hospital ward and found that levels of obedience to unjustified demands by doctors were very high (with 21/22 nurses obeying). So Milgram’s study does have something valuable to tell us about how obedience operates in real life. Consequently, the supportive research and explanation strengthens the external validity and the credibility of Milgram’s research. 

However, Milgram’s study has some methodological issues such as lacking population validity. This is because the sample used in the study was biassed and unrepresentative as it consisted of 40 male American volunteers from an individualistic society. This is an issue because Milgram assumes that the findings from his research would apply to females which is beta bias (where psychologists minimise the differences between males and females). This can result in an androcentric  view which assumes that men and women are alike in terms of obedient behaviour originally observed by Milgram.

Therefore, we cannot generalise findings to the female population  or to collectivist cultures as it would also be ethnocentric to assume that people from other cultural backgrounds and societies would respond to an authority figure in the same way. 

However  there have been other pieces of research conducted in other cultures that are supportive of Milgram.  

For example, Miranda et al (1981) found an obedience rate of over 90% amongst Spanish students. This is a strength because it suggests that Milgram’s conclusions are not limited to American males, but are valid across cultures, and apply to females too.  

This therefore means that the credibility of Milgram’s research and theory of situational variables is increased as it deepens our understanding of how obedience occurs in different contexts which enables people to make more informed decisions about when to obey authority and when to challenge it.

Another issue with Milgram’s research into obedience is that it breaches ethical guidelines. For example, the research had the element of deception, as Milgram originally advertised for volunteers to take part in a study on memory, not into obedience (the real aim), the allocation of roles was fixed and the electric shocks weren’t real. This is an issue because the deception means that participants were not protected from psychological harm, since many showed signs of real distress during the experiment and may have still had feelings of guilt after the experiment from knowing that they could have caused harm to another human being.

Furthermore, Milgram claimed to have given participants the right to withdraw but this was contradicted by the prods given by the experimenter when the participants were in doubt. Some critics argue that these breaches could cause damage to the reputation of psychology and jeopardise future research. 

However, in research like Milgram’s a cost-benefit analysis is crucial because we must consider that furthering our knowledge of how people obey authority could be considered more important than breaching some of these ethical issues. Moreover, participants were debriefed and assured their behaviour was normal and they also received a follow-up questionnaire in which 84% of participants said they felt glad to have been a part of the study.