S

1.4 obedience

Obedience = a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish

Milgrams research

Baseline procedure

  • 40 American men (volunteers)

  • Thought they were taking part in a study for memory

  • Each volunteer was introduced to ‘another participant’ at the lab (which was actually a confederate)

  • The drew lots to see who would be the teacher and who would be the learner, but the draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher

  • The learner was strapped to a chair and wired up to electrodes, the real particpant was given a small shock to experience for themselves

  • The learner had to remember and recall words, if they were wrong the teacher would deliver a shock (fake) that increased in intensity

  • At 300V the learner pounded on the wall and then gave no response, at 315V he pounded again, then remained silent for the rest of the procedure

Used 4 ‘prods’ to order the experiment to continue

  1. Please continue

  2. The experiment requires that you continue

  3. It is absolutely essential that you continue

  4. You have no other choice, you must go on

Baseline findings

  • every participant delivered the shocks up to 300V

  • 12.5% stopped at 300V

  • 65% continued to the highest level of 450V

  • Qualitative data included — observations like sweat, tremble, stutter, biting their lips and digging fingernails into their hands

Predictions

  • 14 psychology students said no more than 3% of the participants would continue to 450V

  • Showing that findings were unexpected

All participants were debriefed and assured that their behaviour was entirely normal. Also a follow up questionnaire showed that 84% were glad to have participated

Conclusion

  • milgram concluded that German people are not different. The American partipants were willing to obey orders even when they might harm another person

  • Suspected there were other factors that encouraged obedience so he conducted further studies

Application

  • Hofling — arranged for an unknown doctor to order 22 nurses to administer an overdose of a drug, this was done over the phone. 95% of nurses obeyed before being stopped.

  • Rank and Jacobson — replicated this but made it more applicable to real life. The drug was known by the nurses, instructions were given in person, they knew the doctor and had time to discuss with each other. Only 2 out of 18 nurses obeyed.

Evaluation

research support

  • Hofling found 95% of nurses obeyed to instructions given to them by a doctor

  • Also a french documentary was made. The Particpants in the ‘game’ were asked to give electric shocks to other participants (who were actors). 80% delivered the maximum shock.

Low internal validity

  • 75% of participants said they believed the shocks were genuine. However martin Orne and Charles Holland argued the partipants were ‘play acting’, so may have been responding to demand characteristics

  • Counterpoint — however Sheridan and king replicated this procedure with real shocks being administered to a puppy. 54% of the men and 100% of the women gave the ‘fatal shock’

Alternative interpretations

  • milgrams experiment may be showing social identity theory

  • Haslam found that milgrams participant obeyed until they were given the 4th prod. ‘You have no other choice, you must go on’. So they were only obeying when they identified with the scientific aims of the research.

Ethical issues

  • participants were deceived as they thought the allocation of roles was random, they thought the shocks were real and they thought it was a memory test. But this was dealt with by debriefing participants

  • Diana Baumrind suggests that deception in psychological studies can have serious consequences for participants and researchers