Milgram Notes
Stanley Milgram
Milgram, Stanley. Behavioral Study of Obedience (1963).
Question?
Why would people obey a legitimate authority figure even if they were asked to do something that was clearly and morally wrong?
Hypothesis
Milgram want to test the GADH (German’s Are Different Hypothesis), which was currently being used by historians to explain the systematic destruction of millions of Jews, Poles and other’s in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
This hypothesis maintains
• Hitler could not have put his evil plans into effect without the cooperation of thousands of others • The German’s have a basic character defect, namely a readiness to obey without question, regardless of the acts demanded by the authority figure. • Hitler needed this readiness to obey for his agenda.
Milgram states:
“It has been reliably established that from 1939 to 1945 millions of innocent persons were slaughtered on command,; gas chambers were built, death camps were guarded, daily quotas of corpses were produced with the same efficiency as the manufacture of appliances.”
Purpose of Yale Study
• His first study at Yale University was intended as a pilot run or a control. • Results made a follow up study in Germany unnecessary. • He predicted that he would have very low levels of obedience in the US and very high ones in Germany.
Method/Design
The procedure involves a ‘teacher’, a ‘learner’ (a stooge or accomplice), and an authority figure (scientist). The teacher is going to perform a memory test on the learner.
Method/Design
• IV: wrong answers by learner DV: rate of obedience (up the voltage ladder). • IV: prods and prompts by experimenter DV: rate of obedience • Could also be controlled observation study, since tape recorders, one way mirrors and observers to make marks were used? But it was not a natural setting. • Quantitative data: number of shocks, strength of shock level • Qualitative data: emotional responses to prompts, post interviews, debriefing
Milgram, Stanley. Behavioral Study of Obedience (1963).
Question?
Why would people obey a legitimate authority figure even if they were asked to do something that was clearly and morally wrong?
Hypothesis
Milgram want to test the GADH (German’s Are Different Hypothesis), which was currently being used by historians to explain the systematic destruction of millions of Jews, Poles and other’s in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
This hypothesis maintains
• Hitler could not have put his evil plans into effect without the cooperation of thousands of others • The German’s have a basic character defect, namely a readiness to obey without question, regardless of the acts demanded by the authority figure. • Hitler needed this readiness to obey for his agenda.
Milgram states:
“It has been reliably established that from 1939 to 1945 millions of innocent persons were slaughtered on command,; gas chambers were built, death camps were guarded, daily quotas of corpses were produced with the same efficiency as the manufacture of appliances.”
Purpose of Yale Study
• His first study at Yale University was intended as a pilot run or a control. • Results made a follow up study in Germany unnecessary. • He predicted that he would have very low levels of obedience in the US and very high ones in Germany.
Method/Design
The procedure involves a ‘teacher’, a ‘learner’ (a stooge or accomplice), and an authority figure (scientist). The teacher is going to perform a memory test on the learner.
Method/Design
• IV: wrong answers by learner DV: rate of obedience (up the voltage ladder). • IV: prods and prompts by experimenter DV: rate of obedience • Could also be controlled observation study, since tape recorders, one way mirrors and observers to make marks were used? But it was not a natural setting. • Quantitative data: number of shocks, strength of shock level • Qualitative data: emotional responses to prompts, post interviews, debriefing