• Milgram’s original research into obedience (1963)
• and 3 of his variation studies which demonstrate situational factors that encourage dissent/resistance (disobedience)
  • Experiment 10: Rundown Office Block
  • Experiment 7: Telephonic instructions
  • Experiment 13: Ordinary man gives orders
  • NB: The spec requires you to learn these 3 variations but the reality is that all the results are compared with those achieved in Milgram’s Experiment 5 (the new baseline) and therefore you also need to learn about this variation as well, this link takes you to my questions and answers on Experiment 5

Assessment Questions: Milgram (1963) and the variations 7, 10, 13/13a are all named in the spec and therefore they could ask you anything they like about these studies. This said there are some bog standard questions that you need to be able to answer, the mark allocations are just a rough guide.

1. Describe the aim of Milgram (1963)/Experiment 7/10/13/13a (2)
2. Describe the procedure of Milgram (1963)/Experiment 7/10/13/13a (6)
3. Describe the findings of Milgram (1963)/Experiment 7/10/13/13a (4)
4. Describe the conclusions of Milgram (1963)/Experiment 7/10/13/13a (2)
5. Describe Milgram (1963)/Experiment 7/10/13/13a (5)
6. Evaluate Milgram (1963)/Experiment 7/10/13/13a (8)
7. Evaluate Milgram (1963)/Experiment 7/10/13/13a with regard to generalisability (8)
8. Evaluate Milgram (1963)/Experiment 7/10/13/13a with regard to reliability (8)
9. Evaluate Milgram (1963)/Experiment 7/10/13/13a with regard to applications to society (8)
10. Evaluate Milgram (1963)/Experiment 7/10/13/13a with regard to validity (8)
11. Evaluate Milgram (1963)/Experiment 7/10/13/13a with regard to ethics (8)

Wider Reading

You should read from Milgram’s ‘Obedience to Authority’ (1974) whenever possible as many of you will find his writing easily accessible. However, this article also provides a pitted version of some of his academic writing in an article written for Harper’s Magazine:

http://www.bxscience.edu/ourpages/auto/2014/4/1/39862073/lesson%20103-Milgram-Obedience%20article%20_for%20hw_.pdf

You might also like to read Michael Moseley (2011) article from the Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-mind-control-is-free-will-simply-a-myth-2177014.html

This is a nice paper by Nick Haslam,  Steve Loughnan, and Gina Perry that detials some of his lesser know variations

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3976349/

Did you know! Rochat and Blass (2014) revealed an unpublished replication completed in 1962 where Milgram asked the participants to ‘bring a friend’ who went onto play the role of the learner. In this condition obedience plummeted suggesting that heroic acts to protect one’s own community are the extension of ‘ordinariness goodness’, (Rochat and Modigliani 1995).

All materials on this website are for the exclusive use of teachers and pupils of psychology . Any unauthorised copying or posting of material from this site is a copyright infringement and could result in legal action being taken against you.

© Amanda J Wood, 2016-2017