You are responsible for setting up a replication of Milgram’s experiment on obedience. What would you change and why?
To give a brief description of the experiment, the original remote learner experiment took place at the Yale University (1963). Forty volunteers took part after answering a newspaper advert appealing for volunteers to take part in a memory and learning experiment. All received payment on arrival before the experiment began. The participants were then introduced to another "volunteer" and they drew lots to decide who would be teacher and who would be the learner, the lot drawing was rigged so the real participant would always be made out to be the teacher. The second "volunteer" was part of the experiment. The participant then watched as the learner was strapped into a chair connected to a shock generator. It didn't actually give electric shocks as it was a fake generator and did not do anything, but the participants were lead to believe it was real. They were then lead in to the another room and asked by the authority figure, who wore a white lab coat, to sit in front of a panel with switches ranging from 15 volts, labelled "Slight Shock", to 450 volts, labelled "XXX".
The participant then read out words over the intercom for a word association game. If the learner gave a wrong answer or took too long to answer participants were expected to press the switches in order to give the learner a "shock" they would then get stronger each time. When each "shock" switch was press a tape of recorded pain noises, pleading and finally silence was played. The participant was unaware this was a recording.
The fake authority figure that was present throughout the whole experiment also gave orders, such as "Please continue" or "You have no other choice, you must go on" to encourage the participant to keep going. The experiment continued until the participant either refused to administer more shocks or until 450 volts "xxx" was reached and given...