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Feb 26, 2015 · In fact, in one of the most-successful and remarkable cases of deception throughout history, a Welsh tramp helped to dupe the Nazis and allow for the Allied assault on southern Italy during...
- Chris Waugh
- Milgram’s Experiment
- Milgram’s Agency Theory
- Milgram Experiment Variations
- Critical Evaluation
- Ethical Issues
Aim
Milgram (1963) was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. Stanley Milgram was interested in how easily ordinary people could be influenced into committing atrocities, for example, Germans in WWII.
Procedure
Volunteers were recruited for acontrolled experiment investigating “learning” (re: ethics: deception). Participants were 40 males, aged between 20 and 50, whose jobs ranged from unskilled to professional, from the New Haven area. They were paid $4.50 for just turning up. At the beginning of the experiment, they were introduced to another participant, who was a confederate of the experimenter (Milgram). They drew straws to determine their roles – learner or teacher – although this was fixed an...
Results
65% (two-thirds) of participants (i.e., teachers) continued to the highest level of 450 volts. All the participants continued to 300 volts. Milgram did more than one experiment – he carried out 18 variations of his study. All he did was alter the situation (IV) to see how this affected obedience (DV).
Milgram (1974) explained the behavior of his participants by suggesting that people have two states of behavior when they are in a social situation: 1. The autonomous state– people direct their own actions, and they take responsibility for the results of those actions. 2. The agentic state– people allow others to direct their actions and then pass ...
Obedience was measured by how many participants shocked to the maximum 450 volts (65% in the original study). In total 636 participants have been tested in 18 different variation studies.
The Milgram studies were conducted in laboratory type conditions, and we must ask if this tells us much about real-life situations. We obey in a variety of real-life situations that are far more subtle than instructions to give people electric shocks, and it would be interesting to see what factors operate in everyday obedience. The sort of situati...
Content
Baumrind (1964) criticized the ethics of Milgram’s research as participants were prevented from giving their informed consent to take part in the study. As a result of studies like Milgram’s, the APA and BPS now require researchers to give participants more information before they agree to take part in a study.
Deception
The participants actually believed they were shocking a real person and were unaware the learner was a confederate of Milgram’s. However, Milgram argued that “illusion is used when necessary in order to set the stage for the revelation of certain difficult-to-get-at-truths.” Milgram also interviewed participants afterward to find out the effect of the deception. Apparently, 83.7% said that they were “glad to be in the experiment,” and 1.3% said that they wished they had not been involved.
Protection of participants
Participants were exposed to extremely stressful situations that may have the potential to cause psychological harm. Many of the participants were visibly distressed. Signs of tension included trembling, sweating, stuttering, laughing nervously, biting lips and digging fingernails into palms of hands. Three participants had uncontrollable seizures, and many pleaded to be allowed to stop the experiment. Milgram described a businessman reduced to a “twitching stuttering wreck” (1963, p. 377), I...
Aug 13, 2024 · Milgram developed an intimidating shock generator, with shock levels starting at 15 volts and increasing in 15-volt increments all the way up to 450 volts. The many switches were labeled with terms including "slight shock," "moderate shock," and "danger: severe shock."
For example, were all the members of the Nazi party naturally hateful and eager for blood? Probably not, so what else could have driven them to do what they did? Let’s see how the psychology experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s and 1970s sought and found answers to these questions.
Sep 26, 2024 · Although the shocks were faked, the experiments are widely considered unethical today due to the lack of proper disclosure, informed consent, and subsequent debriefing related to the deception and trauma experienced by the teachers. Some of Milgram’s conclusions have been called into question.
- Stephen Eldridge
Jan 28, 2015 · Health. Rethinking One of Psychology's Most Infamous Experiments. In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram's electric-shock studies showed that people will obey even the most abhorrent of orders. But...
People also ask
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Oct 24, 2014 · The Stanford Prison Experiment, run by psychologist Philip Zimbardo, is one of the most famous pieces of evidence that cultural roles can have an exceptionally strong influence on people’s...
