Discuss research into obedience as investigated by Milgram. (16 marks)
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Course
Social Influence
Institution
AQA
I finished my psychology A-level last year with an A*. I have compiled a list of improvised essays I done as mocks and each of these essays fall into band 4 (13-16 marks)
Discuss research into obedience
as investigated by Milgram. (16
marks)
Milgram looked into whether regular people would comply with a request to hurt an
innocent person. 40 male American volunteers from his sample visited Yale University,
where they interacted with the researcher and another participant (a confederate). It
was set up so that the actual participant took on the role of the "teacher" and was told to
shock the "learner" with an electric shock of increasing power (ranging from 15 to 450
volts) each time he made a mistake on a list of word pairs. The learner began to protest
when the voltage reached 300 volts, but after that there were no more comments. The
experiment went on until either the subject objected or 450 volts was reached,
whichever came first. The experimenter would give them a verbal nudge, such as, "The
experiment needs that you continue," if they sought to stop. All subjects received 300
volts, and 65% received the maximum 450 volts, according to Milgram. Participants also
exhibited indicators of stress and tension, including sweating, stuttering, and trembling,
according to qualitative assessments.
The fact that Milgram's work violated several ethical standards has been criticised.
Milgram's subjects were duped into thinking they were participating in an experiment on
how punishment impacts learning rather than on compliance. They were also duped by
the role distribution, which was in fact rigged and predetermined. Because of the nature
of the work, Milgram was unable to safeguard the participants from psychological injury.
Many of them shown signs of genuine distress throughout the experiment, and some
may have continued to feel terrible after it was over because they may have potentially
hurt another person. Some of Milgram's detractors thought that these violations may
harm psychology's reputation and imperil future study. The absence of ecological
validity in Milgram's work has also been criticised. This is due to Milgram's laboratory
study, which is significantly dissimilar from actual circumstances involving obedience. In
daily life, we frequently follow much more sensible recommendations than shocking
people with electricity. Because of this, we are unable to extrapolate his results to actual
Discuss research into obedience as investigated by Milgram. (16 marks) 1
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