Burger's Modern Take on Obedience

Burger wanted to see if obedience levels had changed since the 1960s and whether watching someone else refuse orders would make people less likely to obey. His study compared a base condition (following standard procedures) with a modelled refusal condition (where participants saw someone else refuse to continue).

The sample included 70 participants (29 male, 41 female, aged 20-81) who were carefully screened for mental health issues. Anyone who'd taken two or more psychology classes got the boot - can't have people knowing what's coming! Participants were paid $50 regardless of whether they completed the study.

Just like Milgram's original, participants thought they were shocking a "learner" for wrong answers. The key difference? No one was allowed to go beyond 150 volts - much more ethical than Milgram's brutal 450-volt maximum.

Quick Fact: Burger stopped at 150V because research showed that participants who continued past this point in Milgram's study almost always went all the way to 450V.

The Results: Are We Still Sheep?

The findings were pretty eye-opening. 73% of women continued to the maximum 150V compared to 65% of men - not a massive difference, really. In the modelled refusal condition, 63% still carried on even after watching someone else refuse.

Here's the kicker: 70% of participants in 2009 were willing to administer the highest shocks compared to 82.5% in Milgram's 1963 study. Whilst this looks like we've become slightly less obedient, the difference isn't statistically significant.

Burger concluded that time and cultural changes haven't really affected our tendency to obey authority figures. Watching someone else refuse didn't make much difference either - people still followed orders.

Reality Check: Despite 40+ years of social change, we're still pretty much as likely to follow authority figures as our grandparents were.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Burger's study definitely improved on Milgram's approach. The larger, more diverse sample (70 vs 40 participants) included both genders across a wider age range, making the results more generalisable to the general population.

The ethical improvements were massive - participants were screened for mental health, the study stopped at 150V, and a clinical psychologist was present. The reliability was solid too, with everything filmed for other researchers to verify.

However, there are some serious limitations. The biggest issue? We can't actually know if participants would've continued to 450V like in the original study. The artificial nature of shocking strangers for learning mistakes doesn't reflect real-world obedience situations.

The study still involved deception (fake shocks, recorded screams), which raises ethical concerns. Plus, the assumption that behaviour at 150V predicts behaviour at 450V is pretty bold.

Bottom Line: Whilst Burger's study was more ethical, stopping at 150V means we can't directly compare modern obedience levels to Milgram's shocking results.