Critically Assess Psychological Research Into Obedience Essay
Outline and critically assess psychological research into obedience
Psychological research into obedience over the years has enabled us to understand more about the human mind than ever before. When experiments are conducted, the aim is to demonstrate cause and effect relationships between the independent and dependant variables, usually in order to make generalising statements about people.
A well known study into obedience is the Milgram experiment, Milgram had a found interest in why during the Second World War hundreds of people obeyed the orders of others in authority. Millions of innocent people were killed on command. He wanted to test out this potential destructive obedience in a laboratory. Each participant out …show more content…
of the forty of his study met a “Mr Wallace”, who was in actual fact a confederate, thinking that he was also a participant in the study. The participant was told that one of them would be the teacher, while the other was the learner. The study was introduced as an investigation into whether punishment affects learning. However, it was always “fixed” that the genuine participant was the teacher while Mr Wallace was the learner. Mr Wallace was seen being strapped into an “electric chair” device in the next room, while the participant was made aware that the shocks would be extremely painful but would not cause any lasting damage. The participant was to sit in another room and test Mr Wallace on word pairs, administering an electric shock when his answer was incorrect. These increased each time in 15volt intervals and led up to a lethal 450 volts. Each time a shock was given, a pre-recorded sound was played indicating an ever-growing pain in Mr Wallace up until 315 volts where from then on was silence. Another confederate- the authority figure Mr Williams- wearing a lab coat instructed and prodded the participant to go ahead with each shock. Results showed that all participants delivered shocks of 300 volts, whilst a staggering 65% delivered the full 450 volts.
One field experiment on obedience was carried out by Charles Hofling, a renowned psychiatrist, called the Hofling Hospital Experiment.
The main aim was to examine obedience in a real-life setting, A total of 22 nurses took part in the experiment. Each of the nurses was telephoned by a doctor (given a name that was not known to the nurse, e.g. Dr Hanford in one case) and told to give a patient 20 milligrams (mg) of the drug “Astroten”. The nurses were not aware that the pink pills inside the Astroten box were simply glucose tablets! On the box of Astroten it clearly stated that the usual does was 5 mg and the maximum daily dose was 10 mg. So the nurses were being asked to give twice the maximum dosage. The telephone conversation with the doctor was recorded. Also, the behaviour of the nurse was observed after the telephone call had been completed. Within 48 hours of the study, each of the nurses was interviewed and reassured that no harm had been done. They were also told that they would remain anonymous and absolutely no action would be taken against them. Of the 22 nurses in the study, 21 simply completed the telephone call and gave the patient 20 mg of Astroten. The average length of telephone call was around 2 minutes. This indicates that the nurses offered no resistance and simply followed the orders of an authority figure. Hofling had shown that people are obedient in real-life and in life-threatening
situations.
A methodological external issue in obedience studies is a lack of sampling validity. Hofling’s study only used 22 nurses; Bickman’s and Milgram’s studies only used American citizens. These are limited samples and because social behaviour varies considerably between diverse populations it may not be possible to completely generalise from these studies to individuals out of the US. Many would argue that this is not a significant issue. Although Milgram, Bickman and Hofling did only use American participants, in the case of Milgram and Bickman the samples were large and representative of the American population. Furthermore, a number of researchers have since repeated the Milgram study in different countries and have generally found similar or higher rates of obedience, suggesting that the factors identified by Milgram generalise across populations. On the contrary, some found very low levels of obedience with American participants, suggesting that the historical or social context of the studies may influence the level of obedience.
Psychological research into obedience over the years has enabled us to understand more about the human mind than ever before. When experiments are conducted, the aim is to demonstrate cause and effect relationships between the independent and dependant variables, usually in order to make generalising statements about people.
A well known study into obedience is the Milgram experiment, Milgram had a found interest in why during the Second World War hundreds of people obeyed the orders of others in authority. Millions of innocent people were killed on command. He wanted to test out this potential destructive obedience in a laboratory. Each participant out …show more content…
of the forty of his study met a “Mr Wallace”, who was in actual fact a confederate, thinking that he was also a participant in the study. The participant was told that one of them would be the teacher, while the other was the learner. The study was introduced as an investigation into whether punishment affects learning. However, it was always “fixed” that the genuine participant was the teacher while Mr Wallace was the learner. Mr Wallace was seen being strapped into an “electric chair” device in the next room, while the participant was made aware that the shocks would be extremely painful but would not cause any lasting damage. The participant was to sit in another room and test Mr Wallace on word pairs, administering an electric shock when his answer was incorrect. These increased each time in 15volt intervals and led up to a lethal 450 volts. Each time a shock was given, a pre-recorded sound was played indicating an ever-growing pain in Mr Wallace up until 315 volts where from then on was silence. Another confederate- the authority figure Mr Williams- wearing a lab coat instructed and prodded the participant to go ahead with each shock. Results showed that all participants delivered shocks of 300 volts, whilst a staggering 65% delivered the full 450 volts.
One field experiment on obedience was carried out by Charles Hofling, a renowned psychiatrist, called the Hofling Hospital Experiment.
The main aim was to examine obedience in a real-life setting, A total of 22 nurses took part in the experiment. Each of the nurses was telephoned by a doctor (given a name that was not known to the nurse, e.g. Dr Hanford in one case) and told to give a patient 20 milligrams (mg) of the drug “Astroten”. The nurses were not aware that the pink pills inside the Astroten box were simply glucose tablets! On the box of Astroten it clearly stated that the usual does was 5 mg and the maximum daily dose was 10 mg. So the nurses were being asked to give twice the maximum dosage. The telephone conversation with the doctor was recorded. Also, the behaviour of the nurse was observed after the telephone call had been completed. Within 48 hours of the study, each of the nurses was interviewed and reassured that no harm had been done. They were also told that they would remain anonymous and absolutely no action would be taken against them. Of the 22 nurses in the study, 21 simply completed the telephone call and gave the patient 20 mg of Astroten. The average length of telephone call was around 2 minutes. This indicates that the nurses offered no resistance and simply followed the orders of an authority figure. Hofling had shown that people are obedient in real-life and in life-threatening
situations.
A methodological external issue in obedience studies is a lack of sampling validity. Hofling’s study only used 22 nurses; Bickman’s and Milgram’s studies only used American citizens. These are limited samples and because social behaviour varies considerably between diverse populations it may not be possible to completely generalise from these studies to individuals out of the US. Many would argue that this is not a significant issue. Although Milgram, Bickman and Hofling did only use American participants, in the case of Milgram and Bickman the samples were large and representative of the American population. Furthermore, a number of researchers have since repeated the Milgram study in different countries and have generally found similar or higher rates of obedience, suggesting that the factors identified by Milgram generalise across populations. On the contrary, some found very low levels of obedience with American participants, suggesting that the historical or social context of the studies may influence the level of obedience.