Outline the Simalarities and Differences Between Milgrams...

Karen Bullen R2208481 DE 100 Investigating Psychology 1 TMA02 Outline the similarities and differences between Milgrams (1963) obedience study and Burgers (2009) replication. This essay will look at an important key psychological experiment carried out by the renowned social psychologist Stanley Milgram which was carried out in the early 1960’s (Banyard 2012) to determine how far ordinary people would go to inflict pain to a fellow human based on instruction from an authority figure, and that of the replication of the experiment which was carried out by Burger in 2009 (Byford 2014) to determine if the same level of obedience was still applicable in the 21st Century, as was observed in the original study some 40 years earlier. The†¦show more content†¦Burgers participants where told on at least three occasions they could withdraw from the experiment at any time, an option not given to Milgram’s participants. In each study the participant was give the role of ‘teacher’ and placed in a room with a ‘scientist’. The teacher was instructed to ask the learner (who was sitting in an adjacent room, and who along with the scientist where confederates in the experiment) a series of word associations, the teacher had to read the first word and the learner had to answer a matching word form a choice of four given by the teacher. They answered by pressing a corresponding switch on a unit in the room. The teacher was sat in front of a ‘shock generator’ a device which had 30 switches along the front which went up in 15 volt increments from 15volts to 450 volts. The labels above the switches described the shocks as ranging from ‘slight shock’ to ‘danger severe shock’ above 375 volts and the post powerful shock had XXX above it. In Milgram’s study the teacher was given a 45 volt shock to experience the sensation of being shocked and to show how the leaner would receive the shocks. In Burgers replication the teacher only received a 15 volt shock. In both cases the learner made the teacher and the experimenter aware that he had a minor heart