BEHAVIORAL STUDY OF OBEDIENCE

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BEHAVIORAL STUDY OF OBEDIENCE

• Stanley Milgram (1963), Journal of Abnormal and
  Social Psychology
• 67 371378.

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Obedience is a basic element in the structure of
social life

• Some system of authority is a requirement of
  living in a community, and its only the isolated
  person who isnt forced to respond, through
  defiance or submission, to the commands of others

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Obedience is the psychological mechanism that
links individual action to political purpose

• Obedience binds people to systems of authority
• Recent history and observation in daily life
  suggest that for may persons, obedience may be a
  deeply ingrained behavioral tendency, overriding
  even ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct

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Still, obedience serves many productive functions

• Society is predicated on its existence
• Obedience may be ennobling, educative, and refer
  to acts of charity and kindness, as well as to
  destruction

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General Procedure

• A naïve subject is ordered to administer
  increasingly more intense electric shocks to a
  victim in the context of a learning experiment
  (ostensibly to study effects of punishment on
  memory)
• A simulated shock generator is used, with 30
  clearly marked voltage levels, from 15 to 450
  volts
• Labeled Slight Shock to Danger Severe Shock
• Responses of victim, a confederate, are
  standardized
• Internal resistances become stronger, and at a
  certain point the subject refuses to continue
• Behavior prior to the rupture is considered
  obedience
• The point of rupture is the act of
  disobedience/defiance
• A quantitative value is assigned to the subjects
  performance based on the maximum intensity shock
  he is willing to administer

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Crux of study is to systematically vary the
factors believed to alter the degree of obedience

• One may vary
• Aspects of the source of command
• Content and form of command
• Instrumentalities for its execution
• Target object
• General social setting
• And more

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Method Subjects

• 40 males between ages of 20 and 50 from New Haven
  and surrounding communities
• Subjects responded to a newspaper ad and direct
  mail solicitation and believed they were to
  participate in a study of memory and learning at
  Yale University
• A wide range of occupations and education levels
  is represented
• Subjects were paid 4.50 for participation, but
  told that payment was simply for coming and that
  the money was theirs no matter what happened
  after they arrived

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Method Personnel and Locale

• Experiment was conducted on grounds of Yale
  University
• Role of experimenter was played by a 31-yr old
  high school biology teacher
• Manner was impassive and appearance stern
• Dressed in grey lab coat
• Victim played by a 47-yr old accountant trained
  for the role
• Irish American, found to be mild-mannered and
  likable

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Method - Procedure

• Cover story
• Learning task
• Shock generator
• Sample shock
• Shock instructions
• Preliminary and regular run
• Feedback from victim
• Experimenter feedback

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Method Dependent Measures

• Primary dependent measure for any subject is the
  maximum shock he administers before he refuses to
  go further
• May vary from 0 to 30
• Subject who breaks off experiment at any point
  prior to administering the Level 30 shock is
  termed a defiant subject

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Results

• Subjects accept situation
• Signs of extreme tension
• Distribution of scores
• Each of 40 subjects went beyond expected breakoff
  point
• No subject stopped prior to Shock Level 20
• Of 40 subjects, 5 refused to obey commands beyond
  300-volts (Shock Level 20)
• A total of 14 subjects defied the experimenter
• 26 subjects obeyed orders to the end