Milgram Behavioural Study of Obedience

Milgram (1963) Behavioural Study of Obedience
Thinking like a Psychologist - Evaluating the Core Study
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the method used?
The method used by Milgram was the laboratory experiment. The main advantage that Milgram had with this method was the amount of control he had over the situation. He controlled what the participants saw, heard and experienced and was able to manipulate their behaviour through what they were exposed to. This method also allowed accurate measurement of variables and the clear standardised procedures meant that replication was possible.
The disadvantages of this method include low ecological validity and the influence of demand characteristics on the participants and it could be argued that they were behaving in the way that they thought was expected of them rather than producing natural behaviour. Milgram has also been heavily criticised regarding the ethics of this study (see below) .
Was the sample representative?
Milgram’s sample was a self-selected sample of 40 males obtained through advertising. This could be regarded as being a biased sample as they were all male American citizens. They were also volunteers and the majority of the population is unlikely to volunteer to take part in research and those who do may be atypical of the target population in some way. Hence there may be problems generalising from these results.
What type of data was collected?
The data collected was quantitative in that it involved measuring participants’ obedience level, numerically, in terms of how far up the voltage scale they were prepared to go. This type of data has the advantage of being easy to compare and statistically analyse. However, Milgram included no qualitative descriptions of why the participants obeyed or how they felt during the experiment although there are a few brief descriptions of participants’ behaviour during the experiment.
Does this study have high or low Ecological Validity?
As with all laboratory experiments there are problems with Milgram’s study regarding its ecological validity. It involved an extremely unusual task carried out under very artificial conditions and as such, is likely to have produced very unnatural behaviour from the participants. This has implications for the extent to which we can generalise from these results to real life situations and it can be argued that the study tells us nothing about obedience in everyday life but simply shows us how obedient these people were, in this environment, performing this task.
Was the study ethical?
Milgram’s study was probably one of the most unethical pieces of psychological research ever conducted. It can be criticised in terms of almost all the British Psychological Society Ethical Guidelines including informed consent, deception, right to withdraw and protection from harm. However, in Milgram’s defence, we can argue that he did not expect the participants to obey to the extent that they did or to find the task so stressful. He also conducted a thorough debriefing and follow-up monitoring of his participants. A survey conducted one year later revealed that 84% of the participants were glad to have taken part in the study and psychiatric examinations of them showed that none had suffered long term harm.
What does this study tell us about Individual and Situational Explanations of behaviour?
The individual explanation for the behaviour of the participants would be that it was something about them as people that caused them to obey, but a more realistic explanation is that the situation they were in influenced them and caused them to behave in the way that they did. Some of the aspects of the situation that may have influenced their behaviour include the formality of the location, the behaviour of the experimenter and the fact that it was an experiment for which they had volunteered and been paid.
How useful is this research and to what extent can it be applied to everyday life?
As stated previously, the stimulus for this study was the Holocaust and this study has contributed significantly to the discussions regarding the behaviour of the Germans at this time. In particular, it provides strong evidence against the ‘Germans are different’ hypothesis. It also gives a valuable insight into the power of situations and of authority. The results suggest that we have a natural tendency to obey authority figures even when we feel that what we are being asked to do is morally wrong. However, the applications are restricted by the methodological limitations such as low ecological validity and an unrepresentative sample.