milgram (1963); social classic study

  • overview
    • milgrams studies of destructive obedience investigated whether ordinary people would harm a stranger when ordered to do so by authority figure
    • originally wanted to see whether germans were particularly obedient in order to explain nazi killings
    • an experimenter in a grey lab coat in a lab @ yale university
    • 40 males, aged 20 - 50, paid 4.50
    • baseline study found that 65% of pps would follow orders and give 450v shocks to other pp (confederate)
  • procedure
    • recruited through an ad in a paper (volunteer), originally told the study was about memory
    • bought in by lab coat, introduced to milgram + other pp (confederate), drew straws to determine teacher or learner (rigged)
    • separated into 2 rooms, one w/ electric chair, one w/ shock generator
    • mr wallace (confederate) strapped to the chair, learns word pairs
    • teacher had to name a word, wallace had to say the matching one, chooses 1/4 choices, teacher has to shock him everytime he gets it wrong
    • increase voltage as he went along (450v max)
    • learner give wrong answers, teacher shock, when teacher refused to shock they were encouraged by lab coat
    • ‘please continue’
    • ‘this experiment requires you to continue’
    • ‘it is essential you continue’
    • ‘you have no other choice but to continue’
  • ordinary man (exp13)
    • showed that the appearance/clothing of the person giving the orders affects levels of obedience
    • when confederate wore a sports jacket in comparison to a lab coat, obedience levels were lower
      • **20% obedience **
  • telephonic instructions (exp7)
    • showed that the proximity of the authority figure affects the level of obedience, as where the experimenter left the room and gave instructions by telephone, fewer people obeyed
    • **21% obedience **
  • rundown office block (exp10)
    • showed that the setting of the experiment was a factor that affected levels of obedience, as w/out prestigious setting of yale uni, obedience was less
    • **48% obedience **
  • variation 8 (female sample)
    • 65% - sex has no impact
  • variation 17 (model refusal)
    • pp is with w/ 2 other ‘teachers’ (confederate) who refuse to continue shocking mr wallace
    • ** 10% obedience **
  • variation 18 (agency theory)
    • another confederate administers the shocks to mr wallace
    • 93% obedience
  • strength: reliability
    • standardised procedure, limits extraneous variables
    • grey coat, script (encouragement prods), debrief
    • clearly a strength as burger (2009) replicated with the same procedure and got the same findings
    • milgram filmed some pps
  • weakness: ethics
    • deception - pps thought they were shocking someone
    • 83.7% of the sample were pleased that they had participated
    • protection from harm - all were v distressed, 3 had seizures
    • milgram also followed up the sample up a year later to check if any pps had any long-term psychological harm, which was not the case
    • right to withdraw - encouraged to continue
    • although right to withdraw was difficult, it was possible as 35% of the sample had withdrawn
    • informed consent - thought they were doing a memory experiment
    • milgram debriefed all participants straight after the experiment, and gained their retrospective consent