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Milgram - Evaluation - Coggle Diagram
Milgram - Evaluation
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Background
Milgram referred to behaviour of German SS officers in WW2. Suggested that people who obeyed immoral orders were as guilty as those who gave orders, and American men wouldn't have obeyed
Method
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Sample: Advertised in newspaper and direct mailing for men to take part in a study on memory and learning at Yale. Each paid $4 and travelling expenses. Final participants were 40 men between 20-50 years with various occupations. Two more participants: experimenter (a biology teacher) and 'learner' (47 year old accountant, Mr Wallace )
Procedure: When participants arrived, told that experiment looked at how punishment affects learning. Each participant drew lots with Mr Wallace to see who was teacher and who was learner. Mr Wallace was always learner. Learner strapped to chair in next room with shock machine. Teacher given sample shock to make it seem real. Teacher read out pairs of words and learner had to say which of 4 words was correct. When learner wrong, he got a shock by teacher. These went from 15V to 450V. Learner had a recorded script with mostly wrong answers and distress responses.
Results
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Signs of extreme tension shown (sweat, tremble, stutter, lip biting), 3 had 'full-blown seizures'
Conclusions
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People will obey others whom they consider legitimate authority figures even if what they are asked to do goes against their moral beliefs
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Validity
Milgram's study is low in population validity due to the contents of the sample. This meaning that the sample is not representative of the wider target population. For example, Milgram's study only used men in the experiment, which is not representative of the wider population
Milgram's study is high in external validity as all methods of measurement are clearly stated. This means it will be easy to replicate the study in exactly the same way and therefore easier to establish consistency in the results over time. For example, all responses were the same in every and were specified
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Types of data
One weakness of collecting quantitative data is that in Milgram's study it makes comparison between the number of people who stopped at certain volts easier. When collecting the results of when participants stopped administering shocks, these were recorded by how many people stopped at each volt. This makes it easier to compare results in a statistical way
One weakness of using quantitative data is that conclusions can be difficult to draw due to the lack of information given in the results. While Milgram's study shows when participants stopped administering shocks, it doesn't give an reasons as to why the participants stopped when they did, meaning conclusions drawn from the data are limited
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