Findings of the Obedience Studies

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Consider whether the Findings of the Obedience Studies, of Milgram, Hofling   and Zimbardo justify the Methods used to obtain them?

Obedience is the act of obeying orders from others in the form of dutiful or submissive behaviour. We often don’t notice how much of an influence people have on our behaviour, and there are many different factors which affect the way we act. For example, the people we are with, the level of authority that they may have compared to us, the setting, the situation and quite obviously our personality type.

   People obey authority for a number of reasons, such as to avoid punishment, for a reward or benefit and most importantly due to a certain person’s authoritarian status. If somebody seems to have more power than ourselves, we tend to feel the need to obey them. Why do we feel obliged to respect and obey somebody, because of their high position in the hierarchy of authority?

   There have been many intriguing obedience studies which have helped psychologists to get a better insight into how and why us humans decide to obey or disobey, depending on the situation that we are in. although these studies have helped to reveal some important truths about human nature, does that make the unethical and unpleasant ways in which they were discovered acceptable?

   An impressive study which shows the power that people can have over our behaviour was carried out by Milgram (1963). He set up an experiment in which volunteer research participants were required to give increasingly painful electric shocks to another person, as part of a study which they thought was about learning. The participants were aware of the danger involved and that it could prove fatal. They could hear the other person in the room next-door, who they had seen being strapped to the chair, giving out loud cries of pain, and then suddenly becoming silent, as if they had just died. However, that person was an actor, and the cries were pre-recorded, yet the participants weren’t aware of that.

   Milgram continuously gave the participants prods, which led them to believe that they had no other alternative than to continue. This proves that there was no sign of a right to withdraw. The participants were also hugely deceived, as they didn’t know the true nature of the study. To add to this, Milgram didn’t consider any protection from the stress and emotional disturbances that they experienced, which could have potentially been extremely dangerous to their wellbeing.

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   A shocking 65% of them gave the shocks up to the maximum possible level of 450 volts, which would have caused death. As astonishing as the results are, is it right to deceive people in this way?

   The results showed both positive and negative outcomes. As the conditions of the experiment were very controlled, the results can be seen as reliable. There weren’t many confounding variables (such as different genders or nationalities), that could have interfered with the results’ accuracy.  Because of this, it is much easier to identify possible causes and effects.

   Another beneficial effect ...

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The quality of writing is of a fairly high standard, however there are a few grammatical mistakes present. In these two sentences, “First, they were asked to go to the cabinet and check it was there, this gave them the chance tee see the bottle was labelled ‘maximum dosage 10mg’. the doctor the asked the nurse to give the patient a 20mg dosage”, the capital letter at the start of the second sentence is missing, “tee” needs to be altered to “to” and “this” needs to be altered to “which”. But these are only minor details. Spelling and punctuation is of a high standard.

The writer is clearly aware of what terminology and issues the psychology essay requires, and uses them continually throughout. This shows that their analytical skills are very good, as they are able to evaluate the methods of the studies used in relation to a range of issues, for example reliability, validity and of course ethical considerations. The writer’s evaluative points may be deemed stronger if they were to use more examples though. An example would be when they state, “Being put into such a serious situation would quite clearly cause a large amount of stress”, they could mention that stress was identified when the participants exhibited signs of nervous laughter, or bit their fingernails. I think that this would just demonstrate more effectively that they know the studies inside out, and it provides definitive evidence for their evaluative statements. A mistake that people frequently make is not continually referring to the specific question asked throughout the essay. It is obvious that the writer has the knowledge and understanding to answer the question, but to establish that this is the case more effectively to the examiner, the essay would be improved by explicitly writing, “therefore it does/does not justify the methods used” after criticising a study.

Overall, the writer has answered the question well – they demonstrate a wide range of knowledge concerning whether the findings of particular psychological studies do indeed justify the methods used. It is very clear in terms of its structure, beginning with defining obedience and applying it to everyday life. It then proceeds to describe the studies, commenting on both its strengths and weaknesses systematically. I think this essay was well planned and considered, which leads to a good conclusion. However I feel this conclusion could be improved slightly, simply by expanding it – it would be useful to refer to Milgram’s study also, in a summative statement. This shows that a conclusion has been reached in regard to all three studies asked about in the question.