Social Psychology: Case study 1: Behavioural study of obedience

Social Psychology: Case study 1: Behavioural study of obedience

Author: Milgram (1963)

Key term: Obedience

Background/Context: Milgram believed that the holocaust had such a high mortality rate because "the Germans were different" (GADH) from the rest of society. He believed that extreme obedience to authority to the point of mass murder was a one-off, and he expected that in USA in the 1960s no one would obey if he created an extreme situation. 

Destructive behaviour: Orders from authority to cause harm to another person.

Aim/Hypothesis: To test the hypothesis that obeying the orders to murder was a 'one-off' thing and would not happen again. Milgram wanted to show that the germans had a basic character defect and were ready to obey obedience without question regardless of the orders demanded by the authoritive figure, which made Hitler able to commit the genocide of millions of jews. He believed that USA citizens in the 1960s would not obey the command to inflict critical pain onto another person - in this study, that US citizens would not give a harmful electric shock participants would give to a helpless man when ordered to by a scientist in a laboratory. 

40 psychologists predicted that less than 1% would administer the highest voltage. 

Method: Laboratory experiment - observation with questionnaire and interview at the end 

Design: There is no design because the experiment is a 'controlled observation' since there are no different conditions of the IV  - everyone did the same experiment

Participants/ Sampling technique: Advert placed in newspaper looking for volunteers for a study on "learning and memory". Participants would be paid $4 plus $0.50 for travel, though they were never told that payment was conditional on completing the study. (unethical - cash reward and deception). 40 males aged 20-50 of a variety of badckgrounds were selected. The sample was self-selected because people volunteered.

Experimenters: 

• Experimenter: 31 year old biology teacher in a grey lab coat. 
• Mr. Wallace: 47 year old actor pretending to be 'learner' in participant pair. 

Stooge: Someone pretending to be a participant but is actually working in the experiment/ for the researcher. 

Controls:

• Procedure was the same for all participants
• Outfit worn by experimenter (grey lab coat)
• Mistakes made by Mr. Wallace as well as his reaction to the shocks were the same for all participants (pounding on wall at 300V)
• Prods:
  "Please continue."
  "The experimenter requires you to continue."
  "It is absolutely essential that you continue"
  "You have no other choice, you must go on"

Procedure:

1. When each participant arrived, he was introduced to "Mr. Wallace", who they believed to be another participant. The two men were told they were doing an experiment to investigate the effect of punishment on learning. (Unethical - Deception)
2. They were told that one of them would play the role of teacher or learner, and pulled slips of paper from a hat to choose which role they would play, but this was set up so Mr. Wallace would always be the learner.
3. Taken to another room where the learner Mr. Wallace was strapped to a chair and had electrodes attached to him, and the participant was shown the electric shock generator, which rose in 15 volt intervals, from 15V to 450V Participants were told the shocks could be extremely painful but not dangerous; they were both given 45V shocks to demonstrate.
4. The participant (in the role of teacher) was given word pairs to read out to test Mr. Wallace (learner/ stooge) on his recognition of which word pairs went together by pressing a button so it was displayed in teaching room. Every time Mr. Wallace got it right the next pair was presented, but each time Mr. Wallace made a mistake (which was delibrate) the experimenter (also a stooge, so mistakes were planned) ordered the participant to give a shock. The shocks were to increase by 15V for each mistake. No actual shocks were given to Mr. Wallace but the participant did not know this as there was a wall between the teacher and learner.
5. Up to 300V Mr. Wallace did not signal any response to the shocks. However, at 300V and 315V he pounded on the wall and asked to be let out. Afterwards he was silent and did not respond to anymore questions, which could suggest he was hurt, unconscious or dead.
6. When participants (teachers) turned to the experimenter for guidance, they were told to treat his silence as an incorrect response and continue to give the shocks. When the participants protested, the experimenter gave a series of  the verbal prods to encourage them to continue.
7. Participants were considered to have finished the experiment when they refused to give anymore shocks or reached the maximum at 450V. They were then interviewed and asked to rate the on a scale of 1-14 how painful the shocks were for Mr. Wallace. The participants were then debriefed and told the shocks were not real and Mr. Wallace was just an actor and was unharmed, and the real purpose of this study was to test obedience to authority. 

Results

• All participants administered up to 300V.
• 26 participants went up to the maximum 450V (65% of participants)
• 5 refused to go beyond 300V, 4 beyond 315V, 2 beyond 330V and 1 each at 345V, 360V and 375V,
• 14 participants refused
• Most participants showed signs of stress from their body language; sweating, lip biting, stuttering.
• 14 participant laughed nervously
• One had a seizure and the procedure was stopped.
• Most participants protested, although the verbal prods by the experimenter was usually enough to make them continue administering shocks. (Diffusion of responsibility - responsibility supposedly in experimenter's hands)
• Participants rated how level of pain of the last shocks given to Mr. Waller to be 13.42 on a 1-14 scale 

Conclusion

1. People are much more obedient to destructive obedience than we think - majority of people will obey destructive orders
2. However they find obeying these orders highly distressing, though they obey despite their emotional responses. The situation triggers conflict between two ingrained tendences: to obey authority and not to harm people.

Strengths

• Laboratory experiment - High levels of control, can be replicated to test for reliability - Controls: Drawing of lots, timing of scripted responses, 15V progression - allows retest for reliability
• Laboratory experiment - High level of control - IV directly affects DV -
  Controls: Test shock, receiving prods from Mr. Waller at the same time for everyone, same scripted responses - Confidence that the situation of the experiment was the cause of the obedience levels.

Weaknesses

• Laboratory experiment - Artificial scenario - Lack of mundane realism - People are not normally asked to give electric shocks as negative reinforcement.
• Laboratory experiment - Artificial setting - Lack of ecological validity - People do not find themselves in a laboratory in front of a shock generator (although the experiment was repeated in different environments (eg. rundown office block) and with different procedures (eg. experimenter not physically in the room) therefore it could be said that there is some ecological validity but not in this single experiment.)
• Participants were paid $4.00, which may have affected their behaviour as this would have made participants less likely to withdraw due to pay received.
• Generalized - Participants were all male - cannot represent whole population

Ethics

• Deception
  - Participants volunteered for a 'learning and memory' study and were not told beforehand about the experiment. 
  -Participants (teachers) thought they were giving real electric shocks
• Debriefing 
  -Participants were debriefed at the end of experiment so they know they did not really harm anyone, and Milgram had a follow up with the participants 6 months after the experiment to see if they were having any psychological issues from the experiment
• Right to withdraw 
  - Prods given by experimenter although participant protests may have made it more difficult to withdraw because the participants were unclear about whether they had a right to withdraw 
• Psychological damage
  -Participants were caused extreme stress and anxiety as well as tricked