Obedience Study PDF

**Obedience:** Milgram sought an answer to the question of why such a high proportion of the German population obeyed Hitler\'s commands to murder over 6 million Jews in the Holocaust as well as 5 million Romani, homosexuals, black Germans, Poles and members of other social groups during the Second...

**Obedience:** Milgram sought an answer to the question of why such a high proportion of the German population obeyed Hitler\'s commands to murder over 6 million Jews in the Holocaust as well as 5 million Romani, homosexuals, black Germans, Poles and members of other social groups during the Second World War. He thought one possible explanation was that Germans were different from people from other countries- perhaps they were more obedient. In order to determine this, he needed a procedure which could assess how obedient people are. **Key term:** **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\'s research:** Milgram (1963) designed a baseline procedure that could be used to assess obedience levels. This procedure was adapted in later variations by Milgram (situational variables: proximity, location, uniform) and the baseline findings were used to make comparisons. 40 American men volunteered to take part in a study, supposedly on memory. When each volunteer arrived at Milgram\'s lab he was introduced to another participant (a confederate of Milgram\'s). They drew lots to see who would be the Teacher (T) and who would be the Learner (L). The draw was fixed so that the participant was always the Teacher. An Experimenter\' (E) was also involved (also a confederate, dressed in a grey lab coat). The detailed procedure is explained below left and the diagram illustrates the layout of the study. The study aimed to assess obedience in a situation where an authority figure (Experimenter) ordered the participant (Teacher) to give an increasingly strong shock to a Leamer located in a different room (in 15-volt steps up to 450 volts). The shocks were fake but the Teacher did not know this. Baseline findings Every participant delivered all the shocks up to 300 volts. 12.5% (five participants) stopped at 300 volts (intense shock) and 65% continued to the highest level of 450 volts, Le. they were fully obedient. Milgram also collected qualitative data including observations such as: the participants showed signs of extreme tension, many of them were seen to sweat, tremble, stutter, bite their lips, groan and dig their fingernails into their hands three even had full-blown uncontrollable seizures. **Other data:** Before the study, Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the participants\' behaviour. The students estimated that no more than 3% of the participants would continue to 450 volts. This shows that the findings were unexpected - the students underestimated how obedient people actually are. All participants in the baseline study were debriefed and assured that their behaviour was entirely normal. They were also sent a follow-up questionnaire- 84% said they were glad to have participated. **Conclusions:** Milgram concluded that German people are not different. The American participants in his study were willing to obey orders even when they might harm another person. He suspected there were certain factors in the situation that encouraged obedience, so decided to conduct further studies to investigate these (see next spread). **Further procedural detail of Milgram\'s research:** Milgram\'s participants were men (aged 20-50 years) who came from the area around New Haven, Connecticut, USA. They were volunteers recruited through a newspaper advert or mailshot, and were paid \$4.50 for participating. The Learner (called \"Mr Wallace\') was strapped into a chair and wired up with electrodes. The Teacher (the real participant was given a small shock to experience for themselves. This was the only genuine shock in the procedure. The Learner had to remember pairs of words. Each time he made an error, the Teacher delivered a stronger (fake) \'electric shock by pressing switches on a Shock machine. The switches were labelled from slight shock\' through intense shock\' to \'danger-severe shock. When the Teacher got to 300 volts**,** the Learner pounded on the wall and then gave no response to the next question. At 315 volts he again pounded on the wall but was then silent for the rest of the procedure. **The four standard \'prods\' the Experimenter used to order the Teacher to continue were:** - Prod 1 - \"Please continue\' or \'Please go on. - Prod 2 - The experiment requires that you continue.\" - Prod 3-\"It is absolutely essential that you continue.\" - Prod 4 - \"You have no other choice, you must go on.\" **Evaluation:** - **Research support** One strength is that Milgram\'s findings were replicated in a French documentary that was made about reality TV. This documentary (Beauvois et al. 2012) focused on a game show made especially for the programme. The participants in the game\' believed they were contestants in a pilot episode for a new show called Le Jeu de la Mort (The Game of Death). They were paid to give (fake) electric shocks (ordered by the presenter) to other participants (who were actually actors) in front of a studio audience. 80% of the participants delivered the maximum shock of 460 volts to an apparently unconscious man. Their behaviour was almost identical to that of Milgram\'s participants-nervous laughter, nail-biting and other signs of anxiety This supports Milgram\'s original findings about obedience to authority, and demonstrates that the findings were not just due to special circumstances. - **Low internal validity** One limitation is that Milgram\'s procedure may not have been testing what he intended to test. Milgram reported that 75% of his participants said they believed the shocks were genuine. However Martin Orne and Charles Holland (1968) argued that participants behaved as they did because they didn\'t really believe in the set up. so they were \'play-acting: Gina Perry\'s (2013) research confirms this. She listened to tapes of Milgram\'s participants and reported that only about half of them believed the shocks were real. Two-thirds of these participants were disobedient. This suggests that participants may have been responding to demand characteristics, trying to fulfil the aims of the study. - **Counterpoint** However, Charles Sheridan and Richard King (1972) conducted a study using a procedure like Milgram\'s. Participants (all students) gave real shocks to a puppy in response to orders from an experimenter. Despite the real distress of the animal, 54% of the men and 100% of the women gave what they thought was a fatal shock. This suggests that the effects in Milgram\'s study were genuine because people behaved obediently even when the shocks were real. **Alternative interpretation of findings** Another limitation is that Milgram\'s conclusions about blind obedience may not be justified. Alex Haslam et al. (2014) showed that Milgram\'s participants obeyed when the Experimenter delivered the first three verbal prods (see facing page). However, every participant who was given the fourth prod (You have no other choice, you must go on) without exception disobeyed. According to social identity theory (SIT), participants in Milgram\'s study only obeyed when they identified with the scientific aims of the research (The experiment requires that you continue). When they were ordered to blindly obey an authority figure, they refused. This shows that SIT may provide a more valid interpretation of Milgram\'s findings, especially as Milgram himself suggested that identifying with the science\' is a reason for obedience. - **eXtra - Ethical issues** The participants in this study were deceived. For example, the participants thought that the allocation of roles (Teacher and Learner) was random, but in fact it was foxed. They also thought the shocks were real. Milgram dealt with this by debriefing participants. However, Diana Baumrind (1964) criticised Milgram for deceiving his participants. She objected because she believed that deception in psychological studies can have serious consequences for participants and researchers.