Whether Milgram’s experiment actually measures obedience is debatable, this isn’t something which would come across in everyday life and participants knew they were being tested so were more careful in there actions (e.g. if they actually wanted to carry on after the danger level of volts they didn’t thinking that the experimenter and people around them will judge them as being callous so therefore stopped admitting shocks). As this experiment is unlikely to be come across in real life lacks ecological validity.
Hofling et al investigated whether nurses would break hospital rules to obey a doctor. In this experiment nurses working in a hospital were phoned by an unknown doctor and asked to give a drug to a patient. To obey this request, nurses would break the rule of taking telephone instructions from an unknown doctor to administer drugs without completed paperwork. Also the dosage requested was twice the maximum on the label. Almost all the nurses obeyed the doctor; they said they were often given telephone instructions and doctors get annoyed if they refuse. The conclusion to this experiment was in real-life settings authority was high.
I think this experiment is much more efficient at monitoring obedience than Milgram’s. This was used in a real life environment and is something which nurses were frequently in contact with. This setting gives a more ecological validity and therefore less debateable.
Meeus & Raaijmakers used interviews to test obedience. Participants were asked to conduct interviews to test job applicant’s reactions to stress. The applicants were really actors. During the interview, the participants were asked to question the applicants with ‘stress remarks’, designed to give increasing levels of psychological harm. The applicants acted confident at first then broke down as the questions grew more intense. Despite the psychological difficulties the applicants were facing most participants asked all of the questions. In conclusion more people were prepared to inflict psychological harm in this realistic situation. I don’t think this experiment was totally loyal to the ‘realistic’ value it was given, its not likely to go to an interview to suffer from such harsh questions, once again I believe the personality of the person is at influence over the results but not as intensely as in Milgram’s experiment.
All of these experiments use deception so participants wouldn’t know what they’re actually being tested on and no participants in these experiments were informed of their right to withdraw from the experiment if they wished to. They thought they had to continue this influences their obedience levels to being higher than usual as well but also gave a higher ecological value. A few factors can effect our obedience:
- Gradual commitment
- Acting for someone else
- Authority
- Morals
Gradual commitment is agreeing to something in small steps. It makes it harder to refuse the next request. In Milgram’s study participants were asked to only give a low shock at the start then to gradually build it up to a larger shock. Participants might have been less willing to obey it if they were to give the highest shock at the start. They obeyed at the lower levels so it was harder for them to justify not obeying later on.
Acting for someone else Milgram suggested that when we’re working in someone else’s actions we can feel like the responsibility is to them, not on us. If we do something we don’t feel right doing we usually put the blame on someone else as a way to deal with our conscience.
Authority we are socialised to recognise the authority of people who make an impact to society or our lives. We are more likely to act on behalf of someone of authority as we see it as there right to tell us what to do. Studies run in less structures environments the obedience rate was a lot lower
Morals are things which protect us from the consequences of our actions. Milgram’s participants were more obedient in conditions where they couldn’t see or hear the acting participant’s responses. Thus proving my point on Milgram’s study, that people are less susceptible to inflicting shocks, depending on other people’s perceptions on them who are there to watch their actions.
I think that conformity is a big issue with obedience of different people. Apart from the above experiments there are many different fields to monitor an individual obedience level. If a society makes rules on how to live there is usually a select majority of that group who think differently and go from their own perceptions and views. People not conforming to rules isn’t usually a bad thing, depending on people judging them.
The biggest issues of conformity and obedience to those rules are put into social circles. The vast majority of people need to have rules to follow and a social crowd to fit into, they can’t cope being singled out as a non conformer as they see this as a very bad thing. The minority of people just do as they wish careless to weather they fit in with a specific crowd or not. The human psychological mind craves to be accepted and will obey those of their social groups orders in order not to be singled out to a non conformist.
