27. Racing against your heart / Association of specific overt behavior pattern with blood and cardiovascular findings.
Friedman, M., & Rosenman, R.H. (1959).
In order to study the specific overt behavior patterns, Friedman and Rosenman developed a set of characteristics for a specific overt (observable) behavior pattern that they believed was related to increased levels of cholesterol and consequently to coronary heart disease(CHD). The researchers then developed a second set of overt behaviors, essentially the opposite of the first. Next they designed interviews to assess the history of CHD in participants’ parents, their own history of heart trouble, number of hours of work, sleep and exercise, smoking, alcohol and dietary habits. Friedman
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There are eight participants seated in a row. Each person is asked for an answer, but seven out of the eight participants are in on the experiment. Only one is unaware, and they are on the end. As they start from the far end, working their way down to the unknowing volunteer, each participant purposely picks the wrong answer, which makes you, at the end, pick the same wrong. 75% of the unknowing volunteers went along with the group’s incorrect answer. *This study is important because it shows we will doubt our own choice of the right answer just to go along and be in the same …show more content…
The main participant was ordered to send specific shocks labeled from slight shock all the way to severe shock to another person. The participants were men ranging from the ages of 20-50, some skilled/unskilled workers, business men and professionals. Each participant was known as the ‘teacher’ and a confederate was the ‘learner’ along with someone dressed in a grey lab coat looking official was the experimenter. The teacher asked the learner a series of questions and each time the learner got one wrong, the teacher was told to increase the voltage. Participants who went to the highest possible (deadly) voltage were known as obedient subjects. Those who stopped at any lower point were defiant subjects. 65% of participants maxed out the volts even when the learner begged them to stop. *This shows that many are willing to do anything that someone who has authority tells them to
He conducted 18 different variations of the original experiment. When changing different variables the obedience percentage dropped significantly. These variations showed that when the “authority” figure was wearing some sort of uniform the obedience levels would rise but when the participants question their authority they percentage decreased. In other variations the learner and the teacher were placed in the same room so the teacher can experience the pain the learner was going through. In this variation the obedience fell too. Throughout all of the variations the percentage of participants administering the maximum 450 volts decreased significantly when different variables were added to the
With each wrong answer came an electric shock that the teacher, a random male participant, had to physically cause. The teacher could hear the learner after a while begging to stop. At this point the teachers causing the pain are obviously uncomfortable. Some start by laughing nervously and other just immediately beg to stop the experiment. At this point the experimenter gives a series of orders to push the teacher to continue. As a result, two-thirds of participants carried on shocking the learner to the highest level of four hundred and fifty volts. All the participants involved continued up to three hundred
“The psychiatrist specifically predicted that most subjects would not go beyond 150 volts, when the victim makes his first explicit demand to be freed. They expected that only 4 percent would reach 300 volts, and that only a pathological fringe of about one in a thousand would administer the highest shock on the board. These predictions were unequivocally wrong. Of the forty subjects in the first experiment, twenty-five obeyed the orders of the experimenter to the end, punishing the victim until they reached the most potent shock available on the generator. After 450 volts were administered three times, the experimenter called a halt to the session.
Those subjects either played the role of a student or a teacher. The Teachers were told to administer increasingly severe electric shocks to the learner when questions were answered incorrectly. The shock levels were from 15 to 450 volts. In the Milgram Obedience Study Video, it states that” Many if not most subjects were troubled by it and found it a highly conflicted experience... Some were laughing hysterically after inflicting damage upon them,” meaning that this quote not only presents how the experiment gave too much power to the experimenters but also shows the misuse in power (Milgram, 6:40-7:00).
Imagine yourself in the following situation: You sign up for a psychology experiment, on a specific date at a given time. You believe you are partaking in the experiment with fifteen other participants, however they have been given specified scripts that have been written out for them prior to the experiment. You are the only real participant. The experimenter arrives and begins to ask a series of true or false questions that aren't particularly hard. People begin to raise their hand for the inaccurate answers.
Baumrind fairly claims the “laboratory is not the place” to conduct studies of obedience as the laboratory tends to increase the number of variables above what is desired (Baumrind 90). Science Magazine defends Baumrind’s claim by conducting an experiment directed toward answering the question of the reproducibility of previously conducted psychological experiments. The data collected shows a significant decrease in the strength of the data collected and the number of experiments deemed reproducible was much smaller than those which were reproducible (“Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science”). If the experiment’s results are correct, then Baumrind has fairly contested the integrity of the results of the experiment conducted by Milgram since his results have a stronger chance of not being reproduced in a laboratory than of being reproduced in a laboratory. Milgram adds credibility to his article by mentioning the population from which the subjects were drawn. Initially, Milgram enlists Yale undergraduates to volunteer for his study which led to results consistent with his study, but severely taints the credibility of his experiment. He then modifies his experiment and enlarges to volunteer population to include that of anyone living in the city (Milgram 80-81). His
The control panel was adorned with 30 switches, labeled from 15 volts or a slight shock to 450 volts, which was labeled “XXX”, implying a lethal dose of voltage. However, the voltage was labeled incorrectly and inflated as to intimidate the subject. As the rooms were adjacent, the subject could hear Milgram’s colleagues cry out in agony when they were shocked, and the subject began to start questioning the researcher about the condition of their “student” and asked, and eventually demanded that they could leave. Each time, the researcher would provide a prod to continue forth. If one prod was disobeyed, then the researcher would escalate to the next prod. The prods were “1. Please continue.”, 2. “The experiment requires that you continue.”, 3. “It is absolutely essential that you continue.”, and 4. “You have no other choice than to continue.”
At this point, the Teacher and Learner were separated into different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. The Teacher was then given an electric shock from the electro-shock generator as a sample what the Learner would supposedly to receive during the experiment. After the Teacher was given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the Learner. The Teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. To respond the Learner would press a button to indicate their answer, if the answer was wrong the teacher would shock the Learner with the voltage increasing by 15-volts for each wrong answer, if correct the Teacher would read the next word pair. The subjects believed that for each wrong answer the Learner was receiving actual shocks. In reality, there were no shocks. After a series of wrong answers the Learner would start complaining about their heart, afterwards there would be no response from the Learner at all. Many people indicated their desire to stop the experiment and check on the learner at this point in the experiment. Some paused at 135 volts and began to question the purpose of the experiment, while most continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible. A few subjects even began to laugh nervously or exhibit other signs of extreme stress when they heard the screams of the
On arriving for the experiment they were told that they would play he role of the teacher. They were to read a series of words pairs to an individual on the opposite side of a partition. They were to test the individuals' memory by giving him a word and asking him to select the correct matching word from four alternatives. Each time the learner made an error, they were to give him/her an electric shock at the touch of a lever. The individual was strapped into an electric chair while they watched. The teachers had levers in front of them labelled from 15 to 450 volts and switches labelled from slight shock to danger: severe shock to the final XXX'. They were instructed to move one lever higher on the shock generator each time the learner made an error. There were not of course any shocks.
To authenticate the potential electrical intensity to the learner the teacher is sampled with a 45-volt shock to the wrist. The teacher is then instructed to administer an incrementally increasing punishing electrical shock for each incorrect answer. This follows several methods to inform the teacher of the potential impact of the electrical shock that they will administer. These included, warnings listing the voltage range of 15 to 450-volts labeled Slight Shock, Moderate Shock, Strong Shock, Extreme Intensity Shock, Danger Severe Shock, and XXX, bright red
After reading “If Hitler asked you” I was astonished to read that the experiment where participants electrocuted an individual was intense. I can’t even imagine being asked to inflict that kind of intense pain to another human. I understand that everyone can state that in the beginning and over time their moral compass may change. Meyer realized that many of his participants were able to inflict even the more severe voltages past 15 volts like 435 and 450. I found it interesting the difference between the Yale students and Bridgeport because Yale students were more obedient. Was it because of how they were raised not to question authority like “The U.S upper-class” stated or was because of their moral compasses? Also, I thought it was interesting
(Brennan 2016). All the students surveyed believed that only a very small percentage of teachers would be prepared to inflict the maximum voltage. Milgram also informally surveyed his colleagues and found that they, too, believed very few participants would progress beyond a very strong shock. In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65% of the experiment participants gave the maximum 450-volt shock. Milgram however also noticed their behaviour. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment). Many were very uncomfortable administrating the shocks. At some point throughout the experiment, every participant stopped and questioned the experiment; some said they would refund the money they were paid for taking part in the experiment. Throughout the experiment, participants displayed varying degrees of anxious behaviour. Subjects were sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips, groaning, digging their fingernails into their skin, and some were even having nervous laughing fits or seizures. (McLeod,
However, this experiment was all fake, the learner was also a person who knew what was going on just like how it was for the Asch Conformity, there were no real shocks they just gave fake screams to make it seem like it was real! The whole point was to test if the teacher would follow the directions and go all the way to 450 volts. Some people actually gave up because they couldn’t live with hurting an innocent person and some people went all the way to 450 volts. I remember watching this experiment in one of my high school classes I am still just as shocked as I was while watching the video.
After the experiment was concluded, Milgram found the roughly sixty-five percent of the participants continued on to the maximum 459 volts and that no participants stopped administering shocks before 300 volts. From a qualitative standpoint, the participants showed indicated their stress levels through sweat and trembles. The subjects’ inability to depart from the influence of the experimenters demonstrated a factor of compliance in the presence of and authority figure.
The man who shocked the world is an article based on a case study performed by a psychologist Dr. Stanley Milgram in July of 1961. The title is catchy but literal. He advertised for volunteers to participate in an experiment. The participants were only told they would be participating in an experiment on punishment and learning. Dr. Stanley designated a person to be a “teacher” and another subject to be the “learner”. The experiment consisted of the volunteers punishing the learner by electric volt shock when the subject answered wrong. Each wrong answer would require the volunteer to increase the voltage shock, and, the maximum voltage could result in death. This experiment was showing how people will inflict pain on other human beings regardless