In this video we're going to talk about a few factors that can affect obedience. We're going to discuss a few modifications that were done to Milgram's original research, and all of these modifications led to decreased obedience rates. The first modification was just to have the learner or the confederate in the same room as the participant. Basically, the participant has to watch this person screaming and writhing in pain, and that did lead to lower obedience rates. They also found that holding the experiment in a generic office building rather than on the Yale campus led to lower obedience.

They found that having a second experimenter in the room who disagreed with the first one would also lower obedience rates. So you'd have your original experimenter standing there with their clipboard saying, "Please continue," and then a second person, also in their fancy white lab coat telling you, "Oh no, you can stop. It's okay." So that would lower obedience. And then finally, a very simple modification, the experimenter just not wearing a lab coat also led to lower obedience rates.

So we're kind of seeing a combination of two different factors here. The first is just forcing people to confront their actions, forcing them to confront the harm that they are inflicting on somebody else, and that did lead, like we talked about, to lower obedience rates. What's interesting is that these other three are all getting at the exact same thing, which is basically lowering the perceived authority of the experimenter or the situation more generally. So again, having it in this kind of generic office and the experimenter no longer looking professional, no longer looking the part of this authoritative person.

Having somebody disagree with them kind of shows that their authority is in question. So basically, all of these led to a lower perception of authority, and that lower perception led to lower obedience. So all of these factors can influence obedience rates. Alright. So there you have it, and I will see you guys in our next one.

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