1

SOCIAL
APPROACH
⊹ How do you behave in the
presence of other people
(individual/ group) ?
⊹ Do your emotions change / is
influenced by other individuals ?

3
 assumptions of the social
approach
⊹ behaviour, cognitions and emotions can be influenced
by other individuals
⊹ behaviour, cognitions and emotions can be influenced
by groups or social contexts.

4
“ Core study :
MILGRAM (1963)

5
terms
Obedience

Destructive obedience

6
Background
● Milgram’s ethnicity
● Holocaust - by the Nazis
● Destructive obedience - of Nazis
● Dispositional Hypothesis vs
Situational Hypothesis
AIM
⊹ To investigate how obedient individuals
would be to orders received from a person
in authority
⊹ Whether people would be obedient even
when it would result in physical harm to
another person.

8
Participants
⊹ 40 men (20 - 50 years)

“ ⊹
⊹
Volunteer sample - newspaper ad
Various blue collar & white color jobs
⊹ USA

9
 Research method
& design
⊹ Controlled observation
⊹ Initially lab experiment
⊹ Observations on body language & verbal language

10
Procedure
⊹ Yale university
⊹ Participants introduced to Mr.Wallace (Confederate)
⊹ Characteristics of Confederate & Experimenter
⊹ Deceptive statement
⊹ 15 volts - 450 volts
⊹ Preliminary run & Real trial
⊹ 300 V & above - confederate vocal sounds
⊹ Verbal prods
⊹ Experiment stopped - when 450V was reached / when participant
refused to give any more shocks
⊹ Post experiment interview & debriefing
11
 RESULTS
⊹ Preliminary notions of Yale university
students = 3% extreme shock predicted
⊹ Participants convinced of administering
electric shocks - mean estimate of pain of
450v shocks was 13.42 out of 14
⊹ Signs of extreme tension & nervousness
⊹ More nervous behavior - higher the shock
voltage
⊹ Supports the “situational hypothesis”
12
CONCLUSIONS
⊹ Individuals are much more obedient to
authority than we might reasonably
expect. This seems to be true for the
majority of people.

13
CONCLUSIONS
⊹ Despite high levels of obedience, people
find the experience of carrying out
destructive acts under the orders of
authority figures triggers feelings of
stress.
⊹ This is due to a conflict between two
important social phenomena: the need to
obey those in authority and the need to
avoid harming other people 14
EVALUATIONS
Strengths - Standardized procedure,
reliability , high levels of control,
Debriefing

Weaknesses - Ecological validity, low

mundane realism, deception , right to
withdraw
Issues & debates
⊹ Applications to real life
⊹ Individual vs situational

16