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 when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming.

Milgram Baseline Procedure: Milgram (1963) had 40 American men give fake electric shocks to a 'learner' in obedience to instructions from the 'experimenter', thinking they were participating in a memory experiment. Each time the ‘learner’ made a mistake in their answer, they were shocked at increasing volt levels (in 15-volt steps up to 450 Volts)

Milgram Baseline FIndings: Every participant delivered 300V. 12.5% stopped at 300V and 65% of participants continued to 450V. Participants did show signs of tension, with three having ‘full-blown uncontrollable seizures’.

Milgram Student Predictions: 14 Psychology students predicted no more than 3% of participants would go to 450V.

Milgram Participant’s Post-Experiment: All participants were debriefed and assured their behaviour was normal. They were sent up a follow-up questionnaire and 84% said they were glad to have participated.

Milgram Conclusions: Milgram concluded his American participants were willing to obey orders that might result in the harm of another person and that there are situational factors that encouraged obedience.

Research Support (Milgram Baseline): Beauvois et al (2012) replicated the experiment in a game-show fashion called Le Jeu de la Mort where participants were paid to give electric shocks to other ‘participants’ in front of a studio audience. 80% of participants delivered 460V to an ‘unconscious’ man but showed signs of anxiety.

Low Internal Validity (Milgram’s Baseline): Milgram reported 75% of participants said they believed shocks were genuine but Ome and Holland (1968) argued they didn’t and were play-acting. Gina Perry’s (2013) research confirmed this; she listened to tapes of Milgram’s participants and reported only half believed the shocks were real and two-thirds of these were disobedient.

Sheridan + King (Milgram-related): Participants (real students) gave real shocks to a puppy in response to orders from the experimenter and despite the real distress of the animal, 54% of men and 100% of women gave what they thought was a fatal shock.

Conclusions may not be justified (Milgram-Baseline): Haslam et al (2014) showed Milgram’s participants only obeyed the first three verbal prods but all disobeyed the fourth prod that removed their choice. Social Identity Theory suggests participants only obeyed when they identified with the scientific aims of the research and refused when asked to blindly obey.