Burger (2009) Social Psychology Study Summary

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12/12/2025

Psychology

Burger (2009) evaluation

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Dec 12, 2025

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Burger (2009) Social Psychology Study Summary

Tabby

@tab_rles

Burger's 2009 study was a modern replication of Milgram's famous... Show more

2021
Psychologyf
Reliability
Po
is considered
reliable as it was a rephiation of Milgram's study.
E Burger study was a lab experiment so had

Evaluating Burger's Obedience Study

Reliability is one of Burger's biggest strengths because it replicated Milgram's original methodology. As a controlled lab experiment, it used the same standardised procedure where teachers administered electric shocks to learners for wrong answers. This careful replication means we can directly compare results across different time periods and draw reliable conclusions about human behaviour.

The study has excellent real-world application for understanding destructive obedience. Burger found that 70% of participants in the baseline condition were willing to continue beyond 150V, showing that modern people still obey authority figures even when causing harm. These findings help explain historical events like the Holocaust, where Nazi soldiers obeyed Hitler's orders because they saw him as a legitimate authority who would take responsibility for their actions.

However, ecological validity presents a major weakness. The artificial laboratory setting may have caused participants to behave unnaturally, potentially invalidating the results. Similarly, the task validity is questionable since administering electric shocks for wrong answers doesn't reflect real-life situations where psychological harm is more common than physical punishment.

Key Point: Burger's study successfully replicated Milgram's findings in a modern context, but its artificial nature limits how well it represents real-world obedience scenarios.

Study Conclusions and Limitations

Burger's replication successfully answered whether 21st-century participants would show similar obedience levels to those in Milgram's 1960s study. The results confirmed that people today are just as likely to follow harmful orders from authority figures, settling debates about whether social attitudes had changed over time.

Despite conducting the study more ethically than Milgram's original version, Burger's research left several important questions unanswered. The findings couldn't explain why participants with higher empathy levels didn't stop administering shocks, which challenges assumptions about compassionate people being less obedient.

The "model refuses" condition also produced puzzling results, showing minimal impact on participant behaviour. This suggests that seeing someone else disobey authority doesn't significantly reduce our own tendency to follow orders, which has important implications for understanding how to prevent destructive obedience in real situations.

Remember: Whilst Burger's study confirms that obedience to authority remains strong in modern society, it highlights how much we still don't understand about the psychological mechanisms behind following harmful orders.

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Subjects

Psychology

Overview

Reminder of Skills You Should Have Mastered to Be Ready for This Subject

Psychology

•

108

•

Dec 12, 2025

•

2 pages

Burger (2009) Social Psychology Study Summary

Tabby

@tab_rles

Burger's 2009 study was a modern replication of Milgram's famous obedience experiment, designed to see if people in the 21st century would still follow orders to harm others. This research helps us understand why ordinary people sometimes commit terrible acts... Show more

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Evaluating Burger's Obedience Study

Key Point: Burger's study successfully replicated Milgram's findings in a modern context, but its artificial nature limits how well it represents real-world obedience scenarios.

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Study Conclusions and Limitations

Remember: Whilst Burger's study confirms that obedience to authority remains strong in modern society, it highlights how much we still don't understand about the psychological mechanisms behind following harmful orders.