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Describe and evaluate Milgram’s research into obedience 16 mark essay (Psychology - AQA )
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Describe and evaluate Milgram’s research into obedience [16]Obedience is following orders/instructons giien by a person of authority. Milgram (1963) conducted
a shock study to iniestgate the efects of authority and situaton on an indiiidual’s leiel of
obedience, in a hope to understand Nazi Germany. He took a iolunteer sample of 40 males from the
New Haien area with a range of ages and jobs, afer postng an adiert for a ‘memory test’ in a local
paper – ofering to pay those iniolied.
A limitaton of Milgram’s research is that he has a biased sample. His sample are all males, making it
andocentric, this means that results found may not be readily generalisable to women. This means
his results lack external ialidity. Howeier, a study by Sheridan and Kings (1972) shows that women
are just as obedient as men, if not more. In their study, they had men and women shock a puppy if it
did not go to the right side of the room that correlated with the correct answer as to whether the
light was stll or fashing. The study saw 72.5% of partcipants obeying to maximum ioltage – with all
13 women partcipants in that percentage. This shows that women also display high leiels of
obedience. Therefore, supportng Milgram’s study by showing that the results can also apply to
women.
The partcipants were deceiied to belieie they had been randomly assigned to the role of the
‘teacher’ and the confederate Mr Wallace was assigned to the ‘learner’. The ‘learner’ is hooked up to
a shock machine in an adjoining room and answers a series of questons. For each wrong answer, the
naiie partcipant (‘teacher’) has to administer a shock increasing the ioltage by 15V each tme untl
the maximum of 450V. If the partcipant refused, an experimenter would giie a series of four
standardised prods in the same order as other partcipants heard it – ranging from ‘please contnue’
to ‘you haie no choice but to contnue’.
Milgram found that all partcipants obeyed to 300V, with 65% contnuing to 450V. The study also
gained qualitatie data – seeing partcipants sweatng, bitng their lips, trembling, picking their nails
and 3 had seizures. This eiidence shows that people will obey an authority eien if it iniolies hurtng
someone innocent.
A limitaton of Milgram’s research is that it can be critcised for its contriied nature. This is because it
was a laboratory experiment in which an articial task was iniolied – some psychologists haie
argued that because of this partcipants were able to work out the aims/that they were not actually
shocking the indiiidual (demand characteristcs). This means that the partcipants may haie merely
been actng, afectng the ecological ialidity of the results. Howeier, Hofing et al rang up 22 nurses
pretending to be ‘Dr Smith’ telling them to administer a dangerous dosage of a drug to a patent
(really a saline soluton). Despite them not knowing Dr Smith, 21/22 nurses stll obeyed because they
saw him to haie more authority and knowledge than them. This study was conducted within their
natural eniironment (the hospital) and therefore displays a real-life applicaton of Milgram’s
research as the study had high ecological ialidity. Showing that despite being a laboratory
experiment, the results are stll applicable to eieryday obedience.
A limitaton of the research is that there haie been alternatie explanatons proiided. Haslam and
Reicher looked at the behaiiour of the partcipants and saw that the irst three prods did not display
obedience but was asking for help with scientic research. The fourth prod, ‘you haie no other
choice, you must contnue’ demands obedience. Partcipants quit at the fourth prod. This is an
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