Zaina Hassan

Social Psychology- Studies of Obedience.

Study: Stanley Milgram 1963

This study by Milgram is extremely famous and has been repeated numerous times
across the world.
Aim To find out if Americans would obey an unjust order to inflict
pain on someone else.
Method 40 male participants were selected after replying to a newspaper
ad.
At the start of the experiment they met a man called, a mild-
mannered man in his fifties; who was then hooked up to a charge
generator. He was in fact a confederate.

The participant sat in another room and tested 'Mr Wallis' on

word pairs, when he got one wrong, the participant was to give
him an electric shock. These increased as more incorrect answers
were given from 15 to 450 volts.

Each time a shock was given a pre-recorded sound played

indicating the confederate in varying degrees of pain, until after
315 volts there was an eerie silence. Another confederate wearing
a lab coat encouraged the participant to continue (this was the
authority figure).
Results All went up to at least 300 volts. 65% went up to 450.
Conclusion Under certain circumstances, most people will obey orders.

Evaluation
There are a lot of evaluation points on this research, many of which can be applied
to other pieces of research into obedience; if you are here looking for help with an
essay on this. They can be categorised as either ethical or methodological (how
the experiment was carried out).

Ethical
 Deception. In the Milgram experiment the participants were lead to believe
it was a study into memory.
 Harm. Those who continued to the end (most of them) may have thought
they had killed the confederate.
Zaina Hassan
Social Psychology- Studies of Obedience.

 Right to withdraw-Because it was an experiment into Obedience, the

participants may have thought they couldn't leave since Mr Williams
prevented them if they tried.

Methodological
 Limited sample- Only men and people from one town were used. There
were age restrictions on who could apply; the sample was self-selected (i.e
people chose themselves and this is only a certain personality type).
 Ecological Validity (poor)-Giving electric shocks is not an everyday-task,
or indeed a task that someone would ever have done before.
 Experimental realism- The participants may not have believed the
experiment was real, so they are more likely to carry on as they don't think
they're really harming someone.
 Demand characteristics- Since they are aware of being in an experiment,
the behavior of the participants may be altered.

Other studies of Obedience:

Study Bickman (1974) New York Hofling (1966) Nurses

To see if uniform influences Would nurses obey an oder that
Aim
authority and obedience. breaches hospital rules.
Method Three researchers were dressed An unsuspecting nurse was told to give a
Zaina Hassan
Social Psychology- Studies of Obedience.

patient a drug for a 'doctor' before he

as either: a civilian (coat and arrived.
tie); milkman, or guard.
The instruction broke many hospital
People were approached on the guidelines including acting without a
street and were asked one of signed order from a doctor.
three things. Here is an example
of one: "Pick up this bag for me The nurse was stopped before giving the
[points to bag]" medication and as an extra precaution it
was harmless anyway.
Much more obedience with the 21 out 22 nurses obeyed until they were
Results
guard stopped.
Visible symbols of authority Heirarchies such as those in hospitals
Conclusion
increase obedience. put pressure on us to obey.
Supports the findings of
Milgram (relating to status) The nurses did not give consent to take
part in this study.
Has good ecological validity as it
is in a real-life setting. It contradicts Milgram's findings as it
Evaluation
shows very high conformity when an
Questionable how representative order is given over the telephone.
the sample is since it only tests
those who happened to be on this A very small sample was used.
street at the time.