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Public Announcement We Will Pay You $4.00 For One Hour of Your Time

Public Announcement We Will Pay You $4.00 For One Hour of Your Time Persons Needed for a Study of Memory We will pay five hundred New Haven men to help us complete a scientific study of memory and learning. The study is being at Yale University.

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Public Announcement We Will Pay You $4.00 For One Hour of Your Time

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  1. Public Announcement We Will Pay You $4.00 For One Hour of Your Time Persons Needed for a Study of Memory We will pay five hundred New Haven men to help us complete a scientific study of memory and learning. The study is being at Yale University. Each person who participates will be paid $4.00 (plus 50 cents carfare) for approximately one hour’s time. We need you for only one hour there are no further obligations. You may choose the time you would like to come (evenings, weekends, or weekdays). No special training, education, or experience is needed. We want: Factory workers Businessmen Construction workers City employees Clerks Salespeople Laborers Professionals White-collar workers Barbers Telephone worker Others All persons must be between the ages of 20 & 50. High school and college students cannot be used. Source: Adapted From Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, 1974, by Stanley Milgram.

  2. Background --- • Milgram was Asch's teaching assistant at Harvard in 1958 • He worked for Asch at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1959 & 1960 • Milgram's style of data presentation and results (percentages) similar to Asch's • original monograph on conformity • Milgram's dissertation was a cross-cultural study of conformity • Milgram's initially wanted to replicate Asch's conformity studies using shocks

  3. Basic Procedure: • Supposed random assignment to be either the "learner" or the "administrator" • (shocker) • Read from the list of word pairs and determine if the answer from the "learner" is correct • Apple Orange • Divide Multiply • Coin Dollar • Go Road • Heavy Fake • If answer is incorrect, the administrator has to shock the learner starting at 15 • volts and going up at 15 volt increments (i.e., 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90 …..)

  4. The "Learner" • Basic Responses: • At 75 volts, he grunts • At 120 volts, he complains loudly • At 150, he demands to be released from the • experiment • With increasing volts. The learner becomes more • emotional in his responses • At 285 volts, his response resembles an agonized • scream. After that, he makes no sound at all Shock Generator Generator volts ranged form 15 to 450 (XXX Danger) Participants given a sample shock of 45 volts

  5. Predictions: "Before the experiments, I sought predictions about the outcome from various kinds of people -- psychiatrists, college sophomores, middle-class adults, graduate students and faculty in the behavioral sciences. With remarkable similarity, they predicted that virtually all the subjects would refuse to obey the experimenter. The psychiatrist, specifically, predicted that most subjects would not go beyond 150 volts, when the victim makes his first explicit demand to be freed. They expected that only 4 percent would reach 300 volts, and that only a pathological fringe of about one in a thousand would administer the highest shock on the board". (Milgram, 1974)

  6. Basic Arrangement of Milgram's Studies

  7. Milgram Experiment (setup for experiments 17 & 18 Learner Experimenter Peer Subject Peer

  8. Excerpt from Milgram Experiment • Learner (who, from the teacher’s point of view is heard but not seen, an offstage voice): Ow, I can’t stand the pain. Don’t do that … • Teacher (pivoting around in his chair and shaking his head): I can’t stand it. I’m not going to kill that man in there. You hear him hollering? • Experimenter: As I told you before, the shocks may be painful, but- • Teacher: But he’s hollering. He can’t stand it. What’s going to happen to him? • Experimenter (his voice patient, matter-of-fact): The experiment requires that you continue, Teacher. • Teacher: Aaah, but, unh, I’m not going to get that man sick in there … know what I mean? • Experimenter: Whether the learner likes it or not, we must go on, through all the word pairs. • Teacher: I refuse to take responsibility. He’s in there hollering! • Experimenter: It’s absolutely essential that you continue, Teacher. • Teacher (indicating the unused questions): There’s too many left here, I mean, geez, if he gets them wrong, there’s too many of them left. I mean who’s going to take the responsibility if anything happens to that gentleman? • Experimenter: I’m responsible for anything that happens to him. Continue please.

  9. OBEDIENCE QUOTES With numbing regularity good people were seen to knuckle under the demands of authority and perform actions that were callous and severe. Men who are in everyday life responsible and decent were seduced by the trappings of authority, by the control of their perceptions, and by the uncritical acceptance of the experimenter's definition of the situation, into performing harsh acts. …A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority (Milgram, 1965). “IT IS SURPRISING HOW DIFFICULT IT IS FOR PEOPLE TO KEEP SITUATIONAL FORCES IN MIND, AS THEY SEEK A TOTALLY PERSONALISTIC INTERPRETATION OF OBEDIENCE, DIVORCED FROM THE SPECIFIC SITUATIONAL PRESSURES ACTING ON THE INDIVIDUAL” (MILGRAM, 1974). …The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act. (Milgram, 1974) “ANY INTERPRETATION INVOLVING THE ATTACKER’S STRONG SADISTIC IMPULSES IS INADEQUATE. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT THE MAJORITY OF THOSE WHO PARTICIPATED IN SUCH KILLINGS IS SADISTTICALLY INCLINED” (KELMAN, & HAMILTON, 1989, p.13, REGARDING THE MY LAI MASSACRE)

  10. INFLUENCE OF STUDIES • # OF REPRINTS IN ANTHOLOGIES (E.G., ARONSON) • TV DRAMA (10TH LEVEL) • 60 MINUTES • MAGAZINE INTERVIEWS (E.G., ESQUIRE, HARPERS) • BOOK “OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY” (1974) Methodology (initial study) --- No manipulated variables No control condition No theoretically derived hypotheses No specific predictions [Paper rejected twice; JPSP and Journal of Personality]

  11. ADDITIONAL FACTORS AFFECTING OBEDIENCE RATES • SENSE OF URGENCY (TIME PRESSURE) • NO COMMUNICATION • STEP BY STEP INCREASES IN SHOCK LEVELS • STATE OF “AGENCY” (OTHERS ARE RESPONSIBLE)

  12. Ethical Issues • USE OF DECEPTION (LACK OF INFORMED CONSENT) • HARMFUL LONG-TERM EFFECTS TO PARTICIPANTS • ADEQUACY OF DEBRIEFING • THE RIGHT TO WITHDRAW (USE OF 4TH PROD)

  13. THE 4 PRODS • PLEASE CONTINUE, OR PLEASE GO ON • THE EXPERIMENT REQUIRES THAT YOU GO ON • IT IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL THAT YOU CONTINUE • YOU HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE, YOU MUST GO ON.

  14. MILGRAM'S POSITION • UNDERSTANDING OF CRITICAL PHENOMENON • INSIGHT OF PARTICIPANTS • CRITICISM DUE TO NATURE OF FINDINGS • EVERY EFFORT TO DEBRIEF (PURPOSE OF STUDY, FOLLOW-UP REPORT & QUESTIONNAIRE, PSYCHIATRIC INTERVIEW 1 YEAR LATER) • RESULTS WERE UNEXPECTED • NO HARM TO PARTICIPANTS (ESPECIALLY LONG-TERM; MANY WOULD DO IT AGAIN)

  15. Table 2.2 Studies of destructive obedience to authority Study Milgram (1963) USA Male general population 65 Female general population 65 Rosenhan (in Milgram, 1974) USA Students 85 Ancona and Pareyson (1968) Italy Students 85 Mantell (1971) Germany Male general population 85 Kilham and Mann (1974) Australia Male students 40 Female students 16 Burley and McGuiness (1977) UK Male students 50 Shanab and Yahya (1978) Jordan Students 62 Miranda et al. (1981) Spain Students > 90 Schurz (1985) Austria General population 80 Meeus and Raaijmakers (1986) Holland General population 92

  16. Generalization Issue • "Hospital" Study --- • Physician ordered a prescription to be administered to a patient in a ward • Specific conditions: • Done over the phone • Fake drug name • Medication not cleared for use • Past the dosage limit for the (fake) drug • 21/22 Nurses agreed to administer the drug Written description given to 12 nurses. They were asked how they would act. • 10/12 nurses said they would not administer the drug

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