1. Social Psychology Miss Bird
Social Influence
Social Psychology
Miss Bird

2. AQA A Psychology Specification 2015: Social Influence
Types of conformity: internalisation, identification and compliance.
Explanations for conformity: informational social influence and normative social influence, and variables affecting conformity including group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch.
Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo.
Explanations for obedience: agentic state and legitimacy of authority, and situational variables affecting obedience including proximity, location and uniform, as investigated by Milgram.
Dispositional explanation for obedience: the Authoritarian Personality.
Explanations of resistance to social influence, including social support and locus of control.
Minority influence including reference to consistency, commitment and flexibility.
The role of social influence processes in social change.

3. OBEDIENCE Pair discussion What is obedience?
What is an authority figure?
Examples of authority figures?

4. What is obedience?
When you do something that somebody else tells you to do.
Following or ‘obeying’ orders.

5. What is obedience to authority?
A direct form of social influence where an individual is faced with the choice of either complying with or defying a direct order from an ‘authority figure.
Can you think of any examples of authority figures?
Policeman
Doctor
Teachers
Parents
Scientist in a white lab coat

6. Research on obedience
Research on obedience to authority has been carried out to understand the situational conditions under which people ignore their moral judgements in order to carry out a direct order from an authority figure. What does it mean by situational conditions? What does it mean by moral judgements? What is an authority figure?

7. This man carried out a shocking study on obedience to authority
This man carried out a shocking study on obedience to authority! Stanley Milgram (1963)

8. Context of Milgram’s study
Milgram’s study relates to real-life events.
The Second World War – Nazi Germany.
Study published in 1963 – 6 months after the execution of Adolf Eichmann for his part in the murder of European Jews during the Holocaust.
At his trial, Adolf Eichmann claimed he was ‘only obeying orders.’
Milgram set out to investigate whether ordinary people will obey a legitimate authority even when required to injure an innocent person.

9. Milgram (1963)
Aims:-
To investigate whether ordinary people will obey a legitimate authority even when they are required to hurt an innocent person.
To investigate under what circumstances people may be influenced to act against their own conscience by inflicting harm on others.

10. Milgram (1963) Procedure:- Who? 40 male PTs (aged 20-50).
How? Advertised for volunteers to take part in a ‘scientific study of memory and learning’.
Where? Yale University.
Participants were paid $4.50 and told they would receive this even if they quit during the study.

11. Milgram (1963) Procedure:-
‘Real’ PT and 2 confederates; the experimenter (the authority figure) and a ‘fake’ PT.
‘Real’ PTs drew lots with the ‘fake’ PT and always ended up as the ‘teacher.’
‘Fake’ PT – ‘learner.’

12. Milgram (1963) Procedure:-
PTs told aim of the study was to investigate the effect of punishment on learning.
‘Real’ PTs (i.e. ‘teachers’) were told they were to administer increasingly strong electric shocks to the ‘learner’ each time he got a question wrong on the learning task.
Ranged from 15v (mild) to 450v (XXX - death).
‘Learner’ strapped into a chair, attached to electrodes to a shock generator.
Electric shock was given to the ‘teacher’ to show that the equipment worked and convince him that the shocks were real.

13. Milgram (1963) Procedure:- ‘Teacher’ and ‘learner’ in separate rooms.
‘Teacher’ with experimenter.
‘Teacher’ could hear the ‘learner’ through the wall.
‘Learner’ gave mainly wrong answers – received electric shocks in silence until 300v.
Pounded on wall, no response to next question. (repeated at 315v then silent for rest of study).
No response classed as incorrect answer.
If ‘teacher’ asked to stop, given verbal ‘prods’ from ‘experimenter’ – “It is essential that you continue.”

14. Milgram (1963)
Findings:
65% of PTs continued to maximum voltage of 450 volts.
All PTs went to 300 volts (intense shock).
Only 12.5% stopped at that point (300v) where the learner first objected.

15. Milgram (1963)
Findings:
Observational evidence: PTs showed signs of extreme tension.
Sweating, trembling, stuttering, digging fingernails into hands.
All PTs were fully debriefed at the end of the study.

16. Milgram (1963) Conclusion:-
Findings demonstrate that ordinary people are obedient to authority, even when asked to behave in an inhumane manner (removal of personal responsibility as ‘following orders’).
Suggests it is not evil people who commit atrocities but ordinary people who are just obeying orders.

17. Pair activity Read through your notes on Milgram’s study.
Identify at least 3 criticisms of the study (think about the sample/ethics).
Answer the 13 questions in your booklet.
You have 15 minutes.
Q&A!

18. Situational factors in obedience
Milgram (1963) carried out variations of his study to investigate the different factors that can affect levels of obedience.
Proximity of the victim
Proximity of the authority figure
Presence of allies
Increasing the teacher’s discretion

19. Proximity (victim) Teacher and learner in same room.
40% obedience rate (decreased from 65%).
Obedience dropped when teacher could experience the learner’s distress more directly.

20. Proximity (authority figure)
Experimenter absent (delivered instructions, left room, orders over phone).
Only 21% obeyed to 450V (compared to 65%).
Gave weaker shocks than required and lied to authority figure.

21. Presence of allies 3 PTs shared task of teaching the learner.
1. Read list; 2. correct or incorrect; 3. delivered electric shock (real PT).
If 2 confederates refused, almost all real PTs refused (only 10% to 450v).
Used defiance of peers to remove themselves from causing harm.

22. Increasing the teacher’s discretion
Level of electric shock (intensity) given to the learner was decided by the teacher (real PT).
Only 2.5% delivered 450V shock.
95% refused to deliver shocks beyond 300V.

23. Location
Location changed from Yale University to run-down office building down town.
Experimenter had less authority; obedience fell to 47.5% from 65%.

24. Uniform Experimenter wore causal clothes rather than lab coat.
Obedience rate dropped to 20%.

25. Evaluating Milgram ethically
Milgram’s study was greatly criticised for its unethical treatment of participants.
Any ideas of which ethical issues?
Deception
Lack of informed consent
Right to withdraw
Protection from psychological harm

26. Independent task To see what you remember from research methods! 
Answer the 8 questions in your booklet. You have 10 minutes before Q&A!

27. Deception and lack of informed consent
However…Milgram argued experiment would have been meaningless without some degree of deception as PTs could have changed behaviour (i.e. due to demand characteristics/SDB).

28. Right to withdraw
However…Milgram argued PTs knew they were free to leave at any time – as some did! (12.5% at 300v and 35% overall between v).

29. Protection from psychological harm
Milgram’s defence –
He debriefed them! They met Mr Wallace and were offered counselling!
He did not know prior to the study that such high levels of distress would be caused – predicted only 1% to 450V.
He asked PTs afterwards if they found the experience distressing and interviewed them again a year later. 84% were glad to participate, and 74% felt they had learned something of personal importance.

30. Validity
Orne and Holland (1968) argued that PTs behaved the way they did because they didn’t believe the shocks were real.
If so, Milgram was not testing what he intended to test – low internal validity.
Perry (2013) – listened to tapes of Milgram’s PTs and reported that many of them expressed doubts about the shocks.
However, Sheridan and King (1972) conducted a similar study where real electric shocks were given to a puppy – 54% of males and 100% of females delivered maximum shock.
This suggests that the effects in Milgram’s study were genuine because people behaved the same way with real shocks.

31. Independent task
Read the studies by Hofling et al (1966) and Rank and Jacobsen (1975) and make notes in your booklet.
Do the studies support the idea that obedience occurs in real life settings?
You have 10 minutes.