hofling hospital experiment evaluation

Hofling Hospital Experiment (1966)

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Charles K. Hofling (1966) created a more realistic study of obedience than Milgram’s by conducting field studies on nurses unaware that they were involved in an experiment.

The main aim of the Hofling Hospital Experiment was to investigate obedience to authority in a real-world setting, specifically within a hospital environment.

The experiment was designed to test the extent to which the nurses would obey the doctor’s commands, even if they were asked to perform an action that could potentially harm a patient.

An unknown “doctor” (actually a confederate in the experiment) called the hospital and ordered the nurses to administer a dangerously high dose of a (fictional) drug to a patient. The dose was twice the maximum daily limit stated on the drug’s label.

The procedure involved a field experiment involving 22 (real) night nurses. Dr. Smith (the researcher) phoned the nurses at a psychiatric hospital (on night duty) and asked them to check the medicine cabinet to see if they had the drug astroten.

When the nurse checks, she sees that the maximum dosage is supposed to be 10mg. When they speak with the ‘Doctor’, they are told to administer 20mg of the drug to a patient called ‘Mr. Jones’. Dr. Smith is in a desperate hurry, and he will sign the authorization form when he comes to see Mr. Jones later.

The phone call ended when the nurse either (i) obeyed the doctor’s order; (ii) resisted the order; (iii) went to get advice; (iv) became upset; (v) could not find the medication; (vi) or if the call lasted longer than 10 minutes.

The medication was not real, though the nurses thought it was. The drug itself was a harmless sugar pill (it was a placebo) invented just for the experiment.

An observer on the ward stopped the study when the nurse got the medication and approached the patient; the nurse began to contact another professional, or it had been over 10 minutes since the call.

If the nurse administers the drug, they will have broken three hospital rules:

1. They are not allowed to accept instructions over the phone. 2. The dose was double the maximum limit stated on the box. 3. The medicine itself as unauthorized, i.e. not on the ward stock list.

The study also used a control group to compare the findings from the experimental group.

In another hospital, 21 student nurses and 12 graduate nurses were asked to complete a questionnaire about what they would do if confronted with the experimental situation.

These participants were not exposed to the actual experimental situation (the doctor’s phone call).

Instead, they were given a questionnaire asking them how they would respond if faced with the same scenario described in the experiment.

In the experimental group, 21 out of 22 (95%) nurses obeyed the doctor’s orders and were about to administer the medication to the patient when a hidden observer stopped them.

Only one nurse questioned the identity of the researcher (“Doctor Smith”) and why he was on the ward.

The nurses were not supposed to take instructions by phone, let alone exceed the allowed dose.

11 nurses who went to administer the drug admitted to being aware of the dosage for Astroten. The other 10 did not notice but judged that it was safe as a doctor had ordered them to do so.

When other nurses were asked to discuss what they would do in a similar situation (i.e. a control group), 31 out of 33 said they would not comply with the order.

Hofling et al. demonstrated that people are very unwilling to question supposed ‘authority’, even when they might have good reason to.

When the nurses were interviewed later, they pointed out that many doctors were in the habit of giving orders by telephone and became seriously annoyed if they were not obeyed.

Although such obedience was against regulations, the unequal power relations between doctors and nurses meant life would be very difficult if nurses did not do what they were told.

Hofling’s study showed how the social pressure brought about by the imbalance of power could lead to a nurse actually putting a patient at risk, rather than disobeying orders.

High ecological validity

A strength of this study is its high ecological validity, which is due to the fact that it was conducted in a real-life environment.

The study was conducted in a real hospital environment, and the nurses were unaware they were participating in an experiment, so there were no demand characteristics as they did their everyday jobs, acting normally.

Replicability

Another strength of the Hofling Hospital Experiment is its high level of replicability. Replicability refers to the ability of a study to be repeated by other researchers.

In this study, the procedure was standardized, with the “doctor” giving the same scripted instructions to each nurse over the phone so it could be replicated.

Furthermore, the decision of when to end the phone call was operationalized, meaning that there was a clear, objective criterion for determining when the call should be terminated. This operationalization contributes to the replicability of the study, as other researchers can follow the same procedure and criteria when conducting a replication.

The high level of replicability in the Hofling Hospital Experiment allows for further testing of the findings and helps to establish the reliability of the results.

Control group

The inclusion of a control group in the Hofling Hospital Experiment is another strength of the study. The control group, consisting of nurses who were not exposed to the experimental manipulation (the doctor’s phone call), allowed for comparisons to be made between the experimental and control conditions.

The nurses in the experimental and control groups were closely matched on various participant variables, such as age, sex, marital status, length of working week, professional experience, and area of origin. This matching process, known as matched participants, helps minimize the influence of individual differences on the results.

The control group was comprised of 33 nurses, whereas there was only data for 22 nurses in the experiment. This indicates that the study had a high rate of attrition (i.e., high dropout rate).

Ethical issues

The study broke the ethical guideline of deception, as the doctor was real. Also, some nurses were left distressed by the study, so they lacked protection from harm.

The experiment placed the nurses in a highly stressful situation, where they faced a conflict between obeying the doctor’s orders and adhering to hospital rules and their own training. This stress could have had negative psychological consequences for the participants.

While the nurses were debriefed within 30 minutes of the phone call, this does not necessarily negate the potential harm caused by the deception and stress experienced during the experiment.

Lacks reliability

Rank and Jacobson (1977) tried to replicate Hoflings study using a real drug which the nurses had heard of, but did not get similar results.

They believed that the nurse’s knowledge of the drug, specifically the consequence of an overdose, meant they could justify their defiance to the doctor more easily.

This knowledge provided them with a stronger justification to defy the doctor’s orders, as they could cite the potential harm to the patient as a reason for not complying.

This variation in findings between the original study and the replication attempt indicates low reliability, as reliability refers to the consistency of results when a study is repeated under similar conditions.

Hofling, C. K., Brotzman, E., Dalrymple, S., Graves, N. & Bierce, C. (1966). An experimental study of nurse-physician relations. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 143 , 171-180.

Rank, S. G., & Jacobson, C. K. (1977). Hospital nurses” compliance with medication overdose orders: a failure to replicate . Journal of Health and Social Behavior , 188-193.

The Hofling Nurse Study

Questions about obedience still remain. How obedient are people willing to be so they don’t have to ruffle any feathers? At what point will people stand up to authority? These are the questions that many studies, including the Hofling Nurse Study, have tried to answer. This video is all about the Hofling Nurse Study and what it told psychologists about obedience.

What Is the Hofling Nurse Study?

The Hofling Nurse study (also known as the Hofling Hospital study) is one of the many experiments meant to replicate the Milgram experiment, but without the potentially traumatic results for the participants. Psychiatrist Charles K. Hofling created the study in 1966.

What Is the Milgram Experiment?

Social psychologists were left with a lot of questions to answer after World War II. Over a decade after the war had ended, they watched as war criminals sat on trial and defended or confronted their actions. Psychologists asked themselves, “How could people be accomplices in the horrific acts of the Holocaust?”

One psychologist named Stanley Milgram tried to answer that in the 1960s and 1970s. He conducted a series of experiments that looked at obedience in the face of authority. The results were unsettling. Even in the face of potentially harming another person, people were surprisingly unwilling to question authority and more likely to follow orders without protest.

Milgram’s experiments are unsettling. In short, they involved human participants who thought they were administering up to 450-volt shocks into another participant. (The shocks were fake, and the people “receiving” the shocks were actors.) Since the 60s, social psychologists have had to take a deep look into the ethics of using humans in potentially traumatic studies.

How Did the Hofling Nurse Study Work?

The questions asked during the Hofling Nurse Study study was very similar to the questions asked during the Milgram experiment. How obedient are people when they are faced with orders from an authority figure? How far will they go to avoid confrontation with these figures?

Hofling’s team recruited 22 American nurses for the study. One of the researchers would call the nurse on the phone, claiming to be “Dr. Smith.” Dr. Smith wanted the nurses to administer 20mg of a drug called “Astroten.” Astroten is a fake drug, although researchers put a fake bottle with Astroten in the nurses’ cabinets before the study.

On the label for Astroten, it says that 10mg was the maximum daily dosage. By administering 20mg, the nurses would be administering twice that amount.

“Dr. Smith” promised the nurses that he would sign for the medication later. There was no paperwork on the Astroten waiting for the nurses, and nurses were not alerted that a “Dr. Smith” would be calling them. They didn’t know a Dr. Smith.

There are many reasons why the nurses should have said “no” to this request. Each nurse knew that administering twice a daily dosage, of a medication they had not heard of previously, to a strange doctor over the phone, was not within the rules.

Remember, there were 22 nurses in this survey. Before I tell you how many nurses complied, I’ll talk about a different part of the study.

Would You Do It?

The study compared how many nurses actually complied to how many nurses thought they would comply. For this part of the study, Hofling and his team explained the experiment to 12 nurses and 21 nursing students. They then asked the participants, “Would you administer the dose?”

Ten nurses said no. 21 nursing students said no. Researchers used these results to predict how many of the nurses would administer the dose.

So how many nurses do you think actually administered the dose?

The Results of the Hofling Hospital Study

Out of the 22 nurses in the Hofling Hospital study, 21 administered the 20mg of Astroten to the doctor on the phone. These results are pretty unsettling when you think about what could have happened if Astroten were real, and administering twice the daily dosage had harmful consequences. (In the experiment, the Astroten administered was just a sugar pill.)

This study helped to support the conclusions made in the Milgram study without the notorious reputation of Migram’s experiments.

Rank and Jacobson 1977 Findings

While the Hofling Hospital study was more ethical than the Milgram study, psychologists still wanted to improve the procedure. After all, there were only 22 nurses involved in the Hofling study. Would a replication experiment have the same results? Are we all just obeying orders without question, even if it does mean putting others at risk?

In 1977 , Steven G. Rank and Cardell K. Jacobson replicated the Hofling Hospital study. They found a glaring factor that may have influenced the results of the experiment. Astroten was a fake drug. Because it was a fake drug, nurses had less to tell “Dr. Smith” about why they shouldn’t administer the high dose.

Rank and Jacobsen theorized that if the nurses understood the consequences of the drug they were being asked to administer, they would be more likely to say no. The nurses could talk more freely about why they were saying no to the doctor, and could justify their defiance more easily. Rank and Jacobsen recruited 18 different nurses in two major hospitals to conduct the experiment.

Rather than asking to administer Astroten or another fake drug, they called in asking the nurses to administer a “nonlethal overdose” of Valium.

As it turns out, they were right about the impact of knowing the drug. Out of the 18 participants, only 2 administered the Valium. The other 16 refused.

What Do These Results Say About Obedience?

The Milgram experiment, Hofling Nurse study, and replications don’t always tell the same tale about obedience. The replication, for example, shows us that “knowledge is power.” When the nurses had more knowledge, they were able to defy the authority more confidently.

Still, these studies have had a huge impact on the world of social psychology. Not only did the results show how we put our ethics aside to avoid confrontation with authority, but the experiments themselves show how ethics play a big role in the process of understanding human behavior.

Related posts:

• Stanley Milgram (Psychologist Biography)
• The Milgram Shock Experiment
• The Monster Study (Summary, Results, and Ethical Issues)
• The Little Albert Experiment
• Skinner’s Box Experiment (Behaviorism Study)

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Hofling’s Hospital Experiment of Obedience

Hofling’s Hospital Experiment of Obedience is a classic study in social psychology that investigated the degree to which nurses in a hospital would obey an authority figure, even when doing so meant violating ethical and professional standards. The study, conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram’s student Charles Hofling in 1966, had significant implications for our understanding of obedience to authority and the potential consequences of blindly following orders.

The experiment was conducted in the context of the healthcare system, where nurses are often in positions of authority and responsibility. The study was designed to investigate how nurses would respond when they were ordered by a doctor to administer a drug that exceeded the hospital’s recommended dosage limit. The study aimed to shed light on the extent to which authority figures could influence individuals to act in ways that were contrary to their moral and ethical values.

The Experiment

The experiment involved the use of a confederate doctor, who called nurses on the phone and instructed them to administer an unknown drug to a patient. The drug was called “Astroten” and was not listed in the hospital’s drug manual. The dosage of the drug exceeded the maximum recommended limit, and the package had a warning label stating that the drug should not be given to patients who were taking certain other medications.

The nurses who received the phone call were not informed that they were participating in an experiment and were led to believe that the doctor was a real physician. The experiment was conducted in a hospital in the northeastern United States and involved 22 nurses.

The results of the study were alarming. Out of the 22 nurses who were tested, 21 were willing to administer the drug, despite the fact that doing so violated the hospital’s rules and the nurses’ professional code of ethics. The only nurse who refused to administer the drug was the one who had previously received training on ethical issues in nursing.

Moreover, the nurses did not take any steps to verify the identity of the doctor or the drug’s dosage and potential side effects. They also did not consult with their supervisors or colleagues, who could have provided guidance on how to handle the situation.

Implications

Hofling’s experiment had significant implications for our understanding of obedience to authority and the consequences of blindly following orders. The study demonstrated that individuals could be influenced by authority figures to act in ways that were contrary to their moral and ethical values, even in situations that posed potential harm to others.

The experiment also highlighted the importance of professional training and education in preparing individuals to make ethical decisions in complex situations. The nurse who had received training on ethical issues was the only one who refused to administer the drug, highlighting the crucial role of education in promoting ethical decision-making.

Moreover, the study had practical implications for the healthcare system, where the potential for harm to patients is high. The results of the study suggested that healthcare professionals needed to be aware of the potential for obedience to authority to lead to unethical behavior and take steps to prevent it.

Hofling’s Hospital Experiment of Obedience is a classic study in social psychology that demonstrated the extent to which individuals could be influenced by authority figures to act in ways that were contrary to their moral and ethical values. The study had significant implications for our understanding of obedience to authority and the potential consequences of blindly following orders.

The experiment highlighted the importance of professional training and education in promoting ethical decision-making and the need for healthcare professionals to be aware of the potential for obedience to authority to lead to unethical behavior. The study remains relevant today, as it continues to inform discussions on ethics, professionalism, and the role of authority in shaping behavior.

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Milgram, Hoffling and Zimbardo. Critically Consider the Psychological Factors Influencing Obedience to Authority Using Empirical Evidence to Support your Answe

Critically Consider the Psychological Factors Influencing Obedience to Authority Using Empirical Evidence to Support your Answer

Aim : Milgram (1963) was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person.  Stanley Milgram was interested in how easily ordinary people could be influenced into committing atrocities for example, Germans in WWII.

Procedure : Volunteers were recruited for a lab experiment investigating “learning” (re: ethics: deception).  Participants were 40 males, aged between 20 and 50, whose jobs ranged from unskilled to professional (GROSS, R. 1999). They were paid $4.50 for their participation in the experiment but importantly they were told that the payment was simply for coming to the laboratory, regardless of what happened after they arrived (Milgram. S 1963). At the beginning of the experiment they were introduced to another participant, who was actually a confederate of the experimenter (Milgram).  They drew straws to determine their roles – leaner or teacher – although this was fixed and the confederate always ended to the learner. There was also an “experimenter” dressed in a white lab coat, played by an actor. The learner (Mr. Wallace) was strapped to a chair in another room with electrodes. After he has learned a list of word pairs given him to learn, the teacher tests him by naming a word and asking the learner to recall its partner/pair from a list of four possible choices. The teacher is told to administer an electric shock every time the learner makes a mistake, increasing the level of shock each time. There were 30 switches on the shock generator marked from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 (danger – severe shock). The learner gave mainly wrong answers on purpose and for each of these the teacher gave him an electric shock. When the teacher refused to administer a shock and turned to the experimenter for guidance, he was given one of four standard responses indicating that it was essential for continuation. To improve the authenticity of the phoney shock generator written labels were also clearly indicated with the shock severity with the last two switches marked XXX.

Results : All 40 of the participants obeyed up to 300 volts at which point 5 refused to continue. A total of 14 participants defied the experimenter, and 26 obeyed. Overall, 65% of the participants gave shocks up to 450 volts (obeyed) and 35% stopped sometime before 450 volts. With few exceptions, participants were convinced of the reality of the situation. In the post-experimental interview participants were asked: ‘How painful to the learner were the last few shocks you administered to him?’  On a printed 14-point scale ranging from 1 (‘not at all painful’) to 14 (‘extremely painful’), the mean was 13.42. (Milgram. S 1963)

Evaluation : Participants were deceived as to the nature of the study and made to believe they were administering real electric shocks to a real participant. These factors have some ethical issues. However, Milgram could not have found ecological results if he had not deceived his participants. The experiment was also biased as it was only men who participated. A main strength of the experiment was the amount of control that was able to be administered.  For example, participants believed they were being randomly assigned to either the teacher or learner, they believed they were actually administering electric shocks, had the same responses from the same experimenter and so on. In terms of the right to withdraw, it was good that Milgram stated at the start that the money paid to the participants was theirs regardless of whether they continued with the experiment.  However, during the experiment the responses given by the experimenters suggested that withdrawal was not possible and being paid would have increased the participant’s sense of obligation. This is also ethically incorrect. The fact that the experiment took place at the prestigious Yale University lent the study and procedure credibility and respect. This would have increased the chances of the participants obeying the experimenter as it adds a professional aspect to it. The participant believed that the experiment was for a worthy purpose - to advance knowledge and understanding of learning processes again, adding to the professionalism which may have encouraged the participants to obey. For example in a variation to his experiment Milgram altered the location to a run-down office building in downtown Bridgeport, Connecticut.  In this setting the obedience rate was 47.5%, suggesting that the original location had played some part, but it was not a crucial factor. The participants were asked to administer the shock whist they were on their own, if they were in proximity of a friend or colleague they may have been more likely to disobey.

Milgram. S (1963) Behavioural Study of Obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology

GROSS, R. (1999) Key Studies in Psychology, 3rd Edition. London: Hodder and Stoughton

Hofling (1966)

Aim:   Hofling 1966 aimed to discover whether nurses would comply with an instruction which would involve them having to disobey both hospital regulations & medical ethics. The intention was to test the strength of the doctor-nurse relationship, regarding how far a nurse would go to comply with doctor’s orders against their own code of professional conduct.

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Procedure:   Identical boxes of pills were placed in 22 wards of both public & private psychiatric hospitals in the USA. The capsules were actually placebos but the containers were labelled ‘5mg capsules of Astroten’. The label also indicated that the normal dose is 5mg with a maximum daily dose of 10mg. While the nurse was on duty, a confederate acting as a doctor named Dr Smith from the psychiatric department, instructed the nurse by telephone, to give 20mg of Astroten to his patient, as he was in a desperate hurry & the patient needed the capsules. He said that he would come in to observe the patient in 10 minutes time & that he would sign the authorisation when he got there. A real doctor was posted nearby, unseen by the nurse, & observed what the nurse did following the telephone call. Hofling also included a questionnaire study where nurse participants were asked what they thought they would do in the same situation. He asked this questionnaire to student and graduate nurses. (wikipedia, 2012)

Results:   There was a dramatic difference between the answers given in the questionnaire and the actual behaviour observed on the wards.  In the questionnaire 10/12 graduates said they would not have followed the order and 7 mentioned reasons including the dosage discrepancy, hospital policy and need for written permission. All 21 of the student nurses said they would not have followed the order. However, the reality was that 95% or 21/22 nurses obeyed without hesitation even though when questioned later 11 said that they had noticed the dosage discrepancy. Many mentioned that emergency calls like this were quite common, no one asked for written consent but most asked the doctor to hurry. Only one nurse questioned the doctor’s identity and why he was on their ward (Hofling et al 1966).

Evaluation : One of the strengths of this study is that it has high levels of ecological validity, due to the fact it was conducted in a real life environment. However, the study broke the ethical guideline of deception, as neither the doctor nor the drug was real. Although the nurses believed that they would not obey a doctor if it was at jeopardy to the health of a patient but 95% of them did. This indicates that although their intentions were to obey hospital rules and medical ethics, when placed in a situation where an authority figure is instructing them to perform a task that contradicts this, they would go ahead and perform the instruction. One of the factors that would have an effect on this is ‘the white coat effect’ where you are more likely to obey somebody if they are wearing an authoritative uniform, that being said the experiment was conducted in the 1960’s where the doctor nurse relationship was much more ‘obey and command’ than it is now.  The participants were asked to administer the drug whist they were on their own, if they were in proximity of a friend or colleague they may have been more likely to question Dr Jones. Steven Rank & Cardell Jacobson (1977) queried the facts that the nurses had no knowledge of the drug involved and that they had no opportunity to seek advice from anyone of equal or higher status. (Both of which would apply in most hospital situations.) They replicated Hofling’s experiment but the instruction was to administer Valium at 3 times the recommended level, the telephoned instruction came from a real, known doctor on the hospital staff and the nurses were able to consult with other nurses before proceeding. Under these conditions, only 2 out of 18 nurses prepared the medication as requested (stan et al 1987)

Hofling, C. K., Brotzman, E., Dalrymple, S., Graves, N. & Bierce, C. (1966). An experimental study of nurse-physician relations. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

wikipedia. (2012)   Hofling wiki . [Online] Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofling_hospital_experiment [accessed 7 February 2013]

Stan L. Albrecht, Bruce A. Chadwick, Cardell K. Jacobson, (1987) Social psychology. (2nd ed.) London: Prentice-Hall.

Aim :    Zimbardo (1973) was interested in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards or had more to do with the prison environment.

Procedure : To study the roles people play in prison situations, Zimbardo converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison. He advertised for students to play the roles of   prisoners and guards   for a fortnight. 21 male college students (chosen from 75 volunteers) were screened for psychological normality and paid $15 per day to take part in the experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to either the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison environment. The prison simulation was kept as “real life” as possible.   Prisoners   were arrested at their own homes without warning and taken to the local police station. Guards   were also issued a khaki uniform, together with whistles, handcuffs and dark glasses, to make eye contact with prisoners impossible. No physical violence was permitted. Zimbardo observed the behaviour of the prisoners and guards. They were fingerprinted, photographed and ‘booked’.  Then they were blindfolded and driven to the psychology department of Stanford University, where Zimbardo had had the basement set out as a prison. When the prisoners arrived at the prison they were stripped naked, deloused, had all their personal possessions removed and locked away, and were given prison clothes and bedding. They were issued a uniform, and referred to by their number only. Their clothes comprised a smock with their number written on it, but no underclothes. They also had a tight nylon cap, and a chain around one ankle. There were 3 guards to the 9 prisoners, taking shifts of eight hours each while the other guards remained on call (BANYARD et al 2000).

Results:   Within hours of beginning the experiment some guards began to harass prisoners . The prisoners were given pointless and boring tasks to accomplish, and they were generally dehumanized. Over the next few days the relationships between the guards and the prisoners changed, with a change in one leading to a change in the other. The guards held the prisoners in contempt and as the guards’ contempt for them grew, the prisoners became more submissive. The prisoners were dependent on the guards for everything so tried to find ways to please the guards, such as telling tales on fellow prisoners. One prisoner had to be released after 36 hours because of uncontrollable bursts of screaming, crying and anger .  His thinking became disorganized and he appeared to be entering the early stages of a deep depression. Three others also had to leave after showing signs of emotional disorder. All of who had been pronounced stable and normal before the experiment. Zimbardo (1973) had intended that the experiment should run for a fortnight, but on the sixth day he closed it down . After some time for the researchers to gather their data the subjects were called back for a follow-up, debriefing session (GROSS, R. 1999).

Evaluation:  Obviously the experiment has some ethical aspects, including lack of fully informed consent by participants and the level of humiliation and distress experienced by those who acted as prisoners. The consent could not be fully informed as Zimbardo himself did not know what would happen in the experiment. The experiment was also biased as Zimbardo played the role of super intendant. The study demonstrates the powerful effect roles can have on peoples’ behaviour. The participants were playing the role that they thought was expected of, either a prisoner or prison guard.  (It is in fact a simulation of what we expect prison life to be, rather than what it is, as none of the participants had previously been in prison as a guard or prisoner). The prisoners were de-individuated by being stripped of their individuality, their name, dress and appearance.  The prisoners became de-individuated not only to the guards, but to themselves. This encouraged them to act together and to have less of an individual personality taking the role of prisoner more seriously without questioning the ethical side of it. One of the factors which would have had a huge impact on this was the guards wearing sun glasses. The lack of eye contact makes it difficult for the prisoners to interact with the guards on a mutual level as all the prisoners see is a ‘guard’ as opposed to an individual. Because of this behaviour in the prisoners, the guards adopted their role much easier because they were treated as guards by the prisoners so it was easy for them to slip into the role of prison guard. The prisoners also took it more seriously due to the fact they were unexpectedly arrested at their homes and taken to the prison making the situation much more real. The fact it was held at a university would have added to this professionalism.

BANYARD, P. AND GRAYSON, A. (2000) Introducing Psychological Research; Seventy Studies that Shape Psychology, 2nd Edition. London: Macmillan

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Hofling et al (1966)

• Created by: GMarsden
• Created on: 10-05-15 20:55

Hofling et al

Aim - to see whether nurses would obey  an instruction from an  authoritative figure  even if it meant going against hospital guidelines and patient safety

Description:

• Field experiment
• 3 hospitals
• Boxes of placebos (labelled 5mg astroten , max daily dose 10mg ) were places in wards
• Recieved a phone call from an unknown "doctor" (confederate) - asked to give 20mg (overdose) of astroten to his patient as he was in a hurry
• He said he would come and observe the patient and sign the authorisation as soon as he could
• To go through with the request the nurses would be breaking 3 rules - 1.Drug above daily dosage of 10mg 2.Drugs should only be administered after written authorisation is obtained 3.The nurse should be absolutely sure that the Dr is a genuine Dr

21/22 obeyed the doctors orders and administed the overdose of astroten. When debriefed after the experiment, 11 of the nurses said that they had not noticed the dosage discrepency.

A survey was done before the experiment on 33 graduate and student nurses where they were asked if they thought the nurses in the experiment would follow these orders. 31/33 …

• Psychology case studies Hofling et al

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Social Influence 3.0 / 5 based on 1 rating

Hofling's Study on Obedience 0.0 / 5

Psychology Unit 1: Social and cognitive psychology 4.0 / 5 based on 1 rating