Meuss and Raaijmakers (1986) - Unit 1 Social Approach

We study this theory as a comparison study to Milgram’s original study and to see if this procedure would produce similar results in a different culture (Dutch)

Aim:

-          To test obedience in the everyday situation of a job interview

-          To  see to what extent people will obey orders to psychologically abuse a job interviewee

-          To see if Milgram’s findings could be replicated 20 years later in the more liberal Dutch culture

Procedure:

-          24 Participants collected through volunteer sampling using a newspaper advert

-          They were led to believe that they were taking part in a study on stress and performance (deception ethical guideline broken)

-          They were asked to interview applicants for a job who were stooges a fake applicant like Mr Wallace in the Milgram study

-          Participants were told that the job required the ability to be able to handle stress and were told to make negative remarks to the applicants in how they were doing on the test

-          If the participants refused to continue they were prodded to continue by the experimenter

Results:

-          92% of participants obeyed the experimenter to the end and made all the stress remarks

-          There was no real opposition to the experimenter

-          96% of participants were sure they were dealing with a real situation

-          The participants were sure the applicants test scores had been affected by the stress remarks

Conclusion:

-          The level of obedience was considerably higher than in Milgram’s original study

-          Shows that it is easier  to administer psychologically harm that physical harm to someone

-          Results suggest that obedience may not vary between cultures.