Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1963). Vicarious reinforcement and imitative learning. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(6), 601.

Agency theory says that people will obey an authority when they believe that the authority will take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. This is supported by some aspects of Milgram’s evidence.

Frequently Asked Questions

The experimenter (authority figure) delivered verbal prods to encourage the teacher to continue, such as ‘Please continue’ or ‘Please go on’. Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis. New York: Appleton-Century. Allport, F. H. (1942). Methods in the study of collective action phenomena. The Journal of Social Psychology, 15(1), 165-185. A p-value of 0.001 is highly statistically significant beyond the commonly used 0.05 threshold. It indicates strong evidence of a real effect or difference, rather than just random variation.

When reporting p values, report exact p values (e.g., p = .031) to two or three decimal places. However, report p values less than .001 as p< .001. Watson proposed that behaviors can be studied in a systematic and observable manner with no consideration of internal mental states. Obsessions can be focused in one area, such as experiencing unwanted thoughts solely about religious scrupulosity (worries about blaspheming, sinning, or otherwise violating your religious doctrine). Milgram also interviewed participants afterward to find out the effect of the deception. Apparently, 83.7% said that they were “glad to be in the experiment,” and 1.3% said that they wished they had not been involved. Protection of participantsKilham, W., & Mann, L. (1974). Level of destructive obedience as a function of transmitter and executant roles in the Milgram obedience paradigm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29(5), 696–702.

Ivan Pavlov showed that dogs could be classically conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell if that sound was repeatedly presented while they were given food.

Three Modes of Representation

The components of a theory should be as simple as possible. Behaviorists propose using operational definitions (defining variables in terms of observable, measurable events). The underlying assumption is that to some degree the laws of behavior are the same for all species and that therefore knowledge gained by studying rats, dogs, cats and other animals can be generalized to humans.

The study emphasized the role of situational factors over personality traits in determining obedience.The stimuli that have become associated with nicotine were neutral stimuli (NS) before “learning” took place but they became conditioned stimuli (CS), with repeated pairings. They can produce the conditioned response (CR). If a student associates negative emotional experiences with school, then this can obviously have bad results, such as creating a school phobia. Obedient participants were more skeptical that the learner was harmed. This selective reporting biased interpretations. Additional unreported findings further challenge Milgram’s conclusions. Supported by a wealth of colour illustrations, this textbook provides students new to the subject with straightforward and clear explanations of all the key topics within contemporary psychology. The features spread throughout the book are designed to help readers to engage with the material and include: Texts focusing on social psychology first emerged in the 20th century. McDougall published the first notable book in English in 1908 (An Introduction to Social Psychology), which included chapters on emotion and sentiment, morality, character, and religion, quite different from those incorporated in the field today.