Meeus and Raaijmakers – Study of obedience from another culture
Aim: To see if obedience could be replicated using a modern method that was more realistic to everyday life. To conduct a study in a more liberal culture. They wanted to use a method that was not ambiguous as whether behaviour was harmful – some questioned this in Milgrams study and believed that pp’s were unsure about how realistic the shocks were
Procedure: A laboratory experiment of 39 Dutch male and female pp’s aged 18-55, who volunteered by answering a newspaper advert for a stress and test achievement experiment. PP’s were asked to administer psychological harm in the form of 15 increasingly insulting remarks to a confederate/stranger who is applying for a job at a university and has to pass a 32 item test. PP’s were randomly allocated to either the control group (n=15) who were allowed to deliver insults at times of their own choosing and stop whenever they wanted or the experimental group (n=24) who had to follow a standardised set of insults at set times and were prompted by a researcher to continue if they showed any signs of wanting to quit. The participant was led to believe that the applicant/confederate would fail the test if his stress levels got too high.
The participant was led to believe that the applicant/confederate would fail the test if his stress levels got too high. The insulting remarks led to the applicant/confederate becoming distressed and his physiological stress levels are supposedly feedback to the participants via a TV screen which shows numbers 15-56 and are labelled as normal, moderate, severe stress.
When insult 8 and 9 are delivered the applicant asks the PP not to keep making these negative remarks and that he wants to withdraw.
The researcher recorded the maximum number of insults that the participant was willing to deliver before refusing to continue any further.
Findings: 22/24 were fully obedient and delivered all 15 insults (92%). None of the control group delivered any of the insults. Many PPs entered into discussion with the researcher when prompted to continue, levels of opposition were very low.
Conclusion: High levels of obedience are to be expected even 20 years after the original Milgram’s original study and that obedience in Holland is in fact higher than it was in the US in the 60s. They noted that participants seem more likely to comply with orders to deliver psychological harm than physical harm, possibly because the consequences are not so obvious and immediate as hearing someone screaming in pain.
Evaluation
Generalisability: M&R used pp’s of different ages, and replicates Milgram’s study, however only applies to the Dutch – collectivist cultures may differ – also difficult to generalise due to when it was conducted.
Reliability: It follows a standardised procedure and high control means it can be replicated e.g. pp’s were given a script of insults to give, and the stress levels of the confederate were shown via a screen which was pre recorded.
Application: It explains why people obey in real life e.g. bullying/cyber bullying – psychological harm easier to inflict.
Validity: This study wanted to test the role of culture, however by changing the type of harm too it is difficult to know whether obedience is different in another culture, or simply due to measuring a different concept. Psychological harm may be considered more relevant to real life so has more validity, however it still took place in a lab so may not have ecological validity
Ethics: PP’s were deceived about the aims of the experiment so did not give fully informed consent, they believed the job applicant was real and not a confederate, however they were debriefed at the end and the experiment would not have worked if they had known the aims were about obedience.
Like Milgram, M&R also did some variations. In the researcher absent condition 36% were fully obedient. In the two disobedient confederates variation 16% were fully obedient
Aim: To see if obedience could be replicated using a modern method that was more realistic to everyday life. To conduct a study in a more liberal culture. They wanted to use a method that was not ambiguous as whether behaviour was harmful – some questioned this in Milgrams study and believed that pp’s were unsure about how realistic the shocks were
Procedure: A laboratory experiment of 39 Dutch male and female pp’s aged 18-55, who volunteered by answering a newspaper advert for a stress and test achievement experiment. PP’s were asked to administer psychological harm in the form of 15 increasingly insulting remarks to a confederate/stranger who is applying for a job at a university and has to pass a 32 item test. PP’s were randomly allocated to either the control group (n=15) who were allowed to deliver insults at times of their own choosing and stop whenever they wanted or the experimental group (n=24) who had to follow a standardised set of insults at set times and were prompted by a researcher to continue if they showed any signs of wanting to quit. The participant was led to believe that the applicant/confederate would fail the test if his stress levels got too high.
The participant was led to believe that the applicant/confederate would fail the test if his stress levels got too high. The insulting remarks led to the applicant/confederate becoming distressed and his physiological stress levels are supposedly feedback to the participants via a TV screen which shows numbers 15-56 and are labelled as normal, moderate, severe stress.
When insult 8 and 9 are delivered the applicant asks the PP not to keep making these negative remarks and that he wants to withdraw.
The researcher recorded the maximum number of insults that the participant was willing to deliver before refusing to continue any further.
Findings: 22/24 were fully obedient and delivered all 15 insults (92%). None of the control group delivered any of the insults. Many PPs entered into discussion with the researcher when prompted to continue, levels of opposition were very low.
Conclusion: High levels of obedience are to be expected even 20 years after the original Milgram’s original study and that obedience in Holland is in fact higher than it was in the US in the 60s. They noted that participants seem more likely to comply with orders to deliver psychological harm than physical harm, possibly because the consequences are not so obvious and immediate as hearing someone screaming in pain.
Evaluation
Generalisability: M&R used pp’s of different ages, and replicates Milgram’s study, however only applies to the Dutch – collectivist cultures may differ – also difficult to generalise due to when it was conducted.
Reliability: It follows a standardised procedure and high control means it can be replicated e.g. pp’s were given a script of insults to give, and the stress levels of the confederate were shown via a screen which was pre recorded.
Application: It explains why people obey in real life e.g. bullying/cyber bullying – psychological harm easier to inflict.
Validity: This study wanted to test the role of culture, however by changing the type of harm too it is difficult to know whether obedience is different in another culture, or simply due to measuring a different concept. Psychological harm may be considered more relevant to real life so has more validity, however it still took place in a lab so may not have ecological validity
Ethics: PP’s were deceived about the aims of the experiment so did not give fully informed consent, they believed the job applicant was real and not a confederate, however they were debriefed at the end and the experiment would not have worked if they had known the aims were about obedience.
Like Milgram, M&R also did some variations. In the researcher absent condition 36% were fully obedient. In the two disobedient confederates variation 16% were fully obedient