Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, 33620, Tampa, Florida.
Mem Cognit. 1973 Sep;1(3):241-5. doi: 10.3758/BF03198103.
The purpose of this study was to investigate obedience to an E's commands as a function of E competency. Based upon Orne's (1962, 1969) discussion of the demand characteristics inherent in the typical aggression study, it was hypothesized that E incompetence would decrease S obedience. Competence was manipulated by: (1) presenting some Ss with a nervous and inexperienced E, and (2)"accidentally" killing the victim (a rat) midway through the experiment. Thirty-two undergraduate female Ss participated in the experiment-supposedly a study on the physiological effects of stress. Obedi6nce was operationalized as the difference, in simple reaction time, between trials on which Ss were told that their response might result in shock to the rat and trials on which they were told that their response might save the rat from shock. Significant differences in obedience were obtained between competent and incompetent E conditions, and a significant "kill" effect was found in the competent E conditidn. The results of this study suggested that the extreme acts of obedience observed in the laboratory (e.g., Milgram, 1963) occur only when E is perceived as competent. This finding imposes limits on the generalizability of laboratory studies of obedience.
本研究旨在探讨服从者对 E 指令的服从程度是否与 E 的能力有关。基于 Orne（1962，1969）对典型攻击研究中固有需求特征的讨论，本研究假设 E 的无能会降低 S 的服从度。通过以下两种方式来操纵能力：（1）向部分 S 呈现一位紧张且缺乏经验的 E；（2）“意外”在实验中途杀死受害者（一只老鼠）。32 名本科女性 S 参与了实验——据称这是一项关于压力对生理影响的研究。服从度的操作性定义是，在告知 S 他们的反应可能会导致老鼠受到电击的试验与告知 S 他们的反应可能会使老鼠免受电击的试验之间，简单反应时间的差异。在有能力的 E 条件和无能的 E 条件下，服从度存在显著差异，并且在有能力的 E 条件下发现了显著的“杀死”效应。这项研究的结果表明，实验室中观察到的极端服从行为（例如 Milgram，1963）仅在 E 被认为有能力时才会发生。这一发现限制了实验室服从研究的普遍性。
