Explain two weaknesses of Milgram's (1965) study on obedience. (4 marks).

One weakness of Milgram's study is that the sample was biased. The sample consisted of 40 male participants, who were aged between 20-50, middle class, white American citizens. This therefore means that the findings that 65% of participants would obey orders to the maximum voltage of 450 volts, can only be applied to this category of people, and cannot be generalised to other groups e.g. females, due to the little diversity within the sample.Another weakness of the study is that it could be seen as unethical. The British Psychological Society (BPS), states that researchers should be it clear to participants that they can withdraw at any time during the research. Within this study, 4 prods were given to discourage withdrawal e.g. please continue. This could be seen as making withdrawal from the study difficult and may have persuaded others to continue when they did not want to.