Before the experiment, Milgram asked psychology students and professional colleagues what percentage of subjects they expected would give 450v, the answers ranged from 1 to 3, with a mean of 1.2. The actual results were quite different. 65% of the subject administered 450v, the earliest any subject refused to continue was at 300v, where 12% stopped. Subjects also had many behavioural reactions, from sweating and stuttering to one subject who had a seizure. Milgrams study has been criticised for many reasons, it lacks ecological validity and raises many ethical issues. Baumrind (1964, cited in Hill 1998) criticised the study for being unethical because it caused distress to the subjects and could have caused psychological harm, the subjects were deceived as were not informed of the true purpose of the study, and Milgram did not allow subjects the right to withdraw - people wanting to leave were told to continue. Milgram argued that as the results were completely unexpected the procedure was not unethical, all subjects could have left earlier, as some did, and all subjects were fully debriefed. In this study it is thought there are five main factors which explain why the subjects acted in personally distasteful ways in obedience to authorities: the apparatus, the subject, the authority figure, the social situation and the impact of the experimenter on the subject and of the learner's distress on the subject.
There are a number of moderating factors in obedience. Participant authoritarianism, the more authority the participant the more likely they are to be obedient. Some people just have an individual characteristic which makes them more obedient (Blass, 1991, cited in Brehm, 1999). It was thought that perhaps it was just the specific subjects that were very obedience, however Shanab and Yahya (1977,1978, cited in Brehm, 1999) found that Milgram's study could be replicated in several different countries with children as well as college students and older adults with very similar results. The "scale of the obedience suggests that this is a type of behaviour that anybody could show - what Arendt has called the banality of evil" (cited in Hill, 1998). The degree of authority is another factor, when setting of the experiment was moved to a run down office block the full obedience rate went down to 47.5%. When the experimenter was an ordinary person obedience fell to 20%, when the experimenter was absent and left instructions over the telephone, obedience was at 21% and many subjects cheated by giving lower shocks. Immediacy is another moderating factor, this refers to the proximity of the source in time or space to the target. The closer the source is to the target the greater impact it has. If the subjects do not feel responsible for their actions they are more likely to be obedient, as the experimenter said they were responsible. Social defiance is a factor mediating why people are obedient to authorities, when there were 3 teacher, 2 of them being confederates, the first confederate discontinued after 150v, the second after 210v, only 10% of the subjects continued to 450v. When both confederates continued to 450v obedience increased to 75%.
A study was carried out by Hofling, Brotzman, Dalrymple, Graves and Pierce (1966, cited in Brewer and Crano, 1994) which can also be explained by some of these mediating factors to obedience. In the study nurses were given instructions by doctors to administer a drug (which was not commonly used in the hospital) to a patient. The dosage was double the maximum recommendation on the packaging, if given it would be life threatening. Out of the 22 nurses who unknowingly were participants, 21 had to be stopped just before giving the drug. This can be explained by the degree of authority, doctors are of a higher status than nurses, and so are likely to simply follow orders. As one nurse did not administer the drug there is likely to be an individual personality difference. The nurse is also likely to be able to pass responsibility onto the doctor for giving the instruction.
Milgram stated that people have an agentic state. This is "that the individual attributes responsibility for his or her actions to the person in responsibility" (Miller, 1986, p.227), this is a contributory factor to why people are obedient to authorities. People receive information and guidance passively from the authority and therefore have less personal responsibility as they are acting as a 'conduit'. It is much easier and relatively effortless to be obedient, it is much harder to be resistant to obedient behaviour as disobedience can be costly (for instance in the Second World War if people did not go out to fight they were ridiculed). Another contributory factor is roles, this is the norms of behaviour that people follow. Zimbardo (1973, cited in Hill 1998) carried out a prison simulation study, where 22 male subjects were randomly allocated into either the 'prisoner' or the 'guard' role. Zimbardo found that by simply allocating people into roles and giving them a few physical apparatus, such as a simulation prison and uniforms, the subjects filled their roles by behaving in the appropriate manor. For instance the prisoners showed signs of 'Pathological Prisoner Syndrome' and the guards 'Pathology of Power'. The guards punished the prisoners verbally and physically, it got so severe that the study had to be terminated after 6 days rather than the planned 2 weeks. It is obvious that the roles people play is a large contributory factor as to why people obey orders to people in authority. Another contributory factor is that when people start to obey it is hard to stop, this is called foot-in-the-door. In the Milgram experiment, the subjects were in a sequential state, this means that because they started giving the shocks they found it very difficult to stop because they would be admitting the shocks they had previously given were morally incorrect.
Latané's (1981, cited in Brehm, 1999 p. 240) social impact theory "states that social influence of any kind — the total impact of others on a target person — is a function of the others' strength, immediacy, and number". Strength of source is based on status, ability, and relationship to the target, the stronger the source the more influence it has on the target. Immediacy refers to the proximity of the source in time or space to the target. The closer the source is to the target the greater impact it has. As the number of sources increases up to 3 or 4 so does their influence. Social impact theory helps explain why people are likely at act in distasteful ways in obedience to authority, it also predicts that people sometimes resist social pressure.
There are many reasons why people act in personally distasteful ways in obedience to authorities. These include simply following orders, as in World War II when thousands on innocent Jews were killed. People are more likely to be obedient if there are being ordered to do something by someone of higher authority, they are an obedient person, someone else will take responsibility for their actions, and if others are doing the same as them. Being obedient if much easier than being disobedient, even if it does against your personal view. People follow roles, and once they start being obedient it is very difficult to stop.
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References:
Hall. G. (1998). Advanced Psychology Through Diagrams.
Berkowitz. L. (1986) A survey of Socail Psychology. 3rd Edition.
Gross. R and McIlveen R. (1998) Psychology a New Introduction p. 508-516. Hodder and Stoughton.
Brehm. S. S., Kassin. S. M. and Fein. F. (1999). Social Psychology. 4th Edition.
Brewer. M. B. and Crano. W. D. (1994) Social Psychology. West Publishing Company.
Miller. A. G. (1986). The Obedience Experiments. A case Study of Controversy in Social Science. Praeger Publishers.
