PY2 - Core Studies

Context and Aims:

• Milgram has a Jewish Background
• Hannah reflected on Adolf Eichman behaviour - One of the Nazi Leader's
• Claimed that He was just obeying audience - Not sadistic
• "Germans are Different" Hypothesis
• Authorian Personality
• German Behaviour- Dispositional, Internal factors?
• Milgram new as a society we all obey but would we really obey to distructive behaviour?
• It's undesired to obey unjust authority
• AIMED - to create a situation where he could measure the extent of obidience 

Procedure: 

• Sample - 40 Males who responded to a newspaper add (volunteer) - Age 20-50. 
• Payed $4.50 Dollars - even if they left the study. 
• They were told it was a study about memory and learning. 
• The Naiive Participent = Teacher 
• The Confedereate = Student 
• The 'Student' was strapped to an electric chair 
• The Teacher was with the Shock machine which was labelled 'Slight Shock' 'Intense Shock' and '***'
• Teacher was told to administrate a shock when the student gave a wrong answer and then increase it as he does on 
• Student couldn't protest until 300 Volts 
• The experimenter was told to respond to any hesitation from the experiment with Four standrard points 
• Debriefed them at the end and then conducted an interview 

Findings:

• Before the study Milgram asked 14 YALE Psychology students to estimate how many participents were going to go over 450 - 0% to 3%
• Only five did not go up to 350 Volts
• 26/40 Participents gave the full 450 Administreated the 450 volts 
• Signs of extreme stress, e.g. 'sweat,tremble,stutter etc' 
• Recorded the participents - Qualative Data 
• After the study -  92% off participents filled in a questionnaire. 84% were (very)glad they participated, 15% was neutral and 2% was very sorry to have taken part

Conclusions:

• Situational Factors cause people to obey 
• Milgram identified why people were willing to obey in this situation, example:
• Prestige, Trustworthiness,Learninger's willingness, Obligation, Novel situation, Important scientific gains, Conflicting demands and Quick responses required 

Lab Experiment:

• Strength - high control, cause and effect relationship 
• Weaknow ecological validity, demand characteristics 

Internal Validity:

• Orne and Holland claimed that the participents did know the shocks was not real, However Milgram responds that 75% of the participents strongly believed that the shocks were real

Ecological Validity: 

• Findings have been confirmed in other cultures - Smith and Bond 
• Lab experiment is irrelvant

Sample: - Volunteer - Biased sampling, Good variety of backgrounds

Ethical issues:

• Psychological Harm, Deception and The right to withdraw

Burger 2009 

• Replicated Milgram experiment but did not allow 'teachers' to carry on beyond 150 volts; 70% of participents say they would have gone over 
• Supports Milgram as findings were similar
• Could argue that the 70% of participents may not have gone through with it.  

Hoffing et al (1966) 

• 21/22 nurses were willing to obey an order from an unknown Doctor Smith 
• Develops Milgrams findings as it is in a 'real life setting' 
• Not just in a lab expierment 

Sheridan and King (1972)

• Arranged for mix gender participents to give a maximum shock to a puppy (75%- more women) 
• Contradicts - as they found that close proximity to a victum led to less obidence
• Is it because of the proximity of the victim? or it wasn't a human?

Context:

• Previous reasearch looked at the way people formed there opinion in a group situation
• Jennes - Bean study 
• Sheriff - Autokenetic effect
• Asch thought research was limited and lacked impact

Aims:

• To see if people confirm in unambigious situations 
• See which one is more affective, Size of majority or it's unamicity

Sample:

• 123 U.S male student volunteers from different colleges
• Believed it was a vision test

The Base Line Study:

• In each session there was one naiive participent and 6-8 confedereates 
• Naiive participant was sat one before last or last 
• Participants were shown two large cards - one with a standard line and the other with 3 various line of various lenghth 
• They were asked to say which line was the same as the other line - they were a lot different
• 12/18 trials confederates gave the wrong answer
• Debriefed at the end of experiment 

Findings:

• Before study Asch did a control trial - no confederates - less than 1% got it wrong 
• On critical Trials - 36.8% of naiive participents gave wrong answers too 
• 25% never gave a wrong answer
• 75% at least conformed once
• Truthful partner reduced conformity - 25% 

Conclusion:

• strong tendancy to confrom to group situations even when situation is unambiguous 
• certan factors rise conformity such as the size
• People do resit confirmity

• Was not a lab experiment but it was set in a lab setting - high control but low echological validity. 

Validity:

• Triveal task 
• Strangers - May not conform with friends
• Answers were given out loud - Levels of conformity have been found to increase if answeres are given privately 

Sampling:

• Gender Bias 

Ethical Issues:

• Deception
• Psychological harm

Perrin and Spencer (1980)

• Repeated Asch study - only one student conformed on 369 trials 
• Contradicts Asch findings
• However may be due to child of it's time and because of the participents choosen 

Smith and Bond (1988) 

• Reviewd 133 studies carried out kn 17 countries and concluded that collectivist society were more conformist than individulist countries
• Development - conformity still exist but at different levels

Neto (1995)

• Found that women are more conformist than men 
• Devlops Asch Findings 
• Could argue that this is a gender bias or are women more conformist bilologically?

Context:

• GAS - Selye 
• TB patient  had more of disturbing occurance than the control group - Hawkins et al 
• 1960 - Rahe and Holmes created the SRE by analysing case studies over 5000 patients
• This produced a list of 43 critical life events - then asked 400 people to score each event 
• Scores were averaged to life change units for each life event 
• Asses LCU scores of people who have been ill and compared them to people who aren't ill 
• Memory can be distraught 

Aim:

• To conduct a propsective stufy using 'normal' population to investigate if there is a relationship between life events/changrs and illness

Sample:

• 2,664 men 
• naval and marinen personnel serving abroard three US Navy Crusiers
• Mean Age was 22.3 Years
• No one new the true aims 

Measuring Life Changes:

• Were asked to fill in the military version of the SRE 
• Every 6 months 
• Self-Administered questionnaire 

Measuring Illness:

• As each ship returened a research physician went aboard and reviewd all of the sailors health records
• Sick call visits were excused as it might have been an motive to miss work 

Sample:

• 2,664 men 
• naval and marinen personnel serving abroard three US Navy Crusiers
• Mean Age was 22.3 Years
• No one new the true aims 

Measuring Life Changes:

• Were asked to fill in the military version of the SRE 
• Every 6 months 
• Self-Administered questionnaire 

Measuring Illness:

• As each ship returened a research physician went aboard and reviewd all of the sailors health records
• Sick call visits were excused as it might have been an motive to miss work