Conformity and Obedience
Conformity and Obedience Assignment
In this assignment I intend to evaluate Stanley Milgrams studies of obedience and in particular the ethical issues broken. I hope to determine whether the knowledge gained justifies his experiments. After the destruction and atrocities committed in World War II many historians argued that there must be some sort of character defect that made the German people more obedient. Mailgram’s study was an attempt to test ‘the Germans are different’ hypothesis. The hypothesis states that Germans are more likely a person or people in authority regardless of what the act is. (Social psychology handbook pg.8)
Milgram conducted an experiment into the nature of obedience in 1963 at the prestigious Yale University. The aim of the experiment was to investigate the level of obedience participant would go to in giving electric shocks to another person when ordered to by an authority figure. (Social psychology handbook pg.8)
Milgram issued an advertisement in a local paper requesting people aged 20-50 from all walks of life, excluding students to take part in an experiment at Yale University. The experiment would last an hour and the pay was four dollars fifty. The participants were told they were getting paid for coming to the laboratory regardless of the results of the experiment. (Gross, 2010, pg. 416)
40 male participants were selected; they arrived at Yale university psychology department and were greeted by a young man dressed in a lab coat. He introduced himself as Jack Williams, the experimenter. He was to appear stern and emotionless throughout the experiment. There was also another participant introduced as a likeable and mild-mannered man named Mr Wallace, he was a confederate and everything from here on has been pre-planned except the results of course. (Gross, 2010, pg. 416)
The participant were given a short introduction and told the aim of the experiment was to assess the effects of punishment on learning. The participant
In this assignment I intend to evaluate Stanley Milgrams studies of obedience and in particular the ethical issues broken. I hope to determine whether the knowledge gained justifies his experiments. After the destruction and atrocities committed in World War II many historians argued that there must be some sort of character defect that made the German people more obedient. Mailgram’s study was an attempt to test ‘the Germans are different’ hypothesis. The hypothesis states that Germans are more likely a person or people in authority regardless of what the act is. (Social psychology handbook pg.8)
Milgram conducted an experiment into the nature of obedience in 1963 at the prestigious Yale University. The aim of the experiment was to investigate the level of obedience participant would go to in giving electric shocks to another person when ordered to by an authority figure. (Social psychology handbook pg.8)
Milgram issued an advertisement in a local paper requesting people aged 20-50 from all walks of life, excluding students to take part in an experiment at Yale University. The experiment would last an hour and the pay was four dollars fifty. The participants were told they were getting paid for coming to the laboratory regardless of the results of the experiment. (Gross, 2010, pg. 416)
40 male participants were selected; they arrived at Yale university psychology department and were greeted by a young man dressed in a lab coat. He introduced himself as Jack Williams, the experimenter. He was to appear stern and emotionless throughout the experiment. There was also another participant introduced as a likeable and mild-mannered man named Mr Wallace, he was a confederate and everything from here on has been pre-planned except the results of course. (Gross, 2010, pg. 416)
The participant were given a short introduction and told the aim of the experiment was to assess the effects of punishment on learning. The participant
Bibliography: Ethical Guidelines and Social Research, PowerPoint Presentation on Moodle available @ https://moodle.lincolncollege.ac.uk/AAE/course/view.php?id=361 Gross, R. (2010) Psychology: The science of mind and behaviour, sixth edition, London, Hodder Education. Social Psychology Unit Handbook handed out September 2011 by Lynn Train-Brown.