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Discuss Milgram's research A*
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An A* example of this 16 mark essay. From a student who achieved over 90% in their psychology A-level, and now studies medicine.
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Outline and evaluate Milgram’s research into obedience. (16 marks)Milgram investigated whether ordinary people would obey an unjust command from an
authoritative fgure to the extent where they would harm an innocent person. farticipants were
asked to deliver ‘shocks’ of increasing voltage to a confederate in another room when they
answered questions incorrectly. Despite clear evidence that the confederate was hurt and no longer
wanted to take part – e.g. agonising screams followed by silence and no responses to questions –
65% of participants continued to the maximum 450V. No participants stopped below 300V.
farticipants showed visible signs of distress for example sweating and trembling.
Milgram’s replications identifed three situational variables in obedience. Obedience
dropped to 20% when the experimenter lef the room and gave instructions over the phone
showing the efect of proximity. Obedience also decreases when the experimenter and location have
less perceived authority; obedience dropped to 47% when the experiment was conducted in a high
street building as opposed to Yale university and dropped to 20% when the experimenter did not
wear a lab coat (uniform).
A limitation of Milgram’s research is that its artifcial nature may mean it lacks internal
validity. Gina ferry claims that many participants were sceptical as to whether the shocks were real
suggesting that participants obeyed due to demand characteristics. However a follow-up
questionnaire found that 70% of Milgram’s participants believed that the shocks were real. Inn
addition Sheridan and King investigated whether participants would give ‘fatal’ shocks – the shocks
were real but only mild – to a puppy in order to train it; 54% of males obeyed and 100% of females
obeyed. This suggests that the majority of Milgram’s participants showed natural behaviour
strengthening the internal validity of the study and our understanding of destructive obedience.
A strength of Milgram’s research is that it has good ecological validity. Despite the
experiment being a lab study – ofen associated with poor ecological validity – Milgram claims that
the relationship between the participant and experimenter refects authority relationships in real
life. Furthermore Hofing conducted a study in a hospital in which nurses were ordered – over the
phone by an unfamiliar doctor – to administer 20mg of an unfamiliar to a patient where the
maximum dosage was clearly stated as 10mg. 21 out of 22 nurses would have obeyed if not
intercepted. This strengthens Milgram’s research and conclusions as it suggests they are
generalizable to obedience in real-life situations.
There is research support for the role of uniform in obedience. Bickman found that
participants were twice more likely to obey a confederate asking them to pick up liter if they were
dressed as a uniformed security rather than a regularly dressed man. This supports Milgram’s
conclusions that uniform increased the perceived authority of the authority fgure making
obedience more likely.
Word count: 168 + 283
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