Another Look At Milgram: The Role Of Reflection Time And Normative Information In Obedience To Authority

This study aimed to investigate the effect of normative information and time to reflect on obedience to authority. We sought to extend Milgram’s paradigm to investigate people’s willingness to inflict psychological pain on others by using a Cyberball paradigm where participants were instructed to ignore a fictitious participant. The experiment had a 2 (normative information) x 2 (time to reflect) design. The normative information manipulation indicated either most people completed the study or that most people did not complete the study. Additionally time to reflect was manipulated by providing participants with either limited or ample time to reflect on their decisions. Neither normative information nor reflection time had an impact on peoples’ level of obedience. There was also not an interaction between the variables. This suggests that these variables may not be as integral to our understanding of obedience to authority as originally anticipated.