Evaluation of the Hofling et al. (1966) study

It can be argued that method chosen had high ecological because it was carried out in the environment where the behaviour being tested naturally occurred.  That is nurses do normally show some levels of obedience to doctors in a hospital setting.

Although the study does have high population validity for nurses we do have to be careful generalising the findings to other professions.

As the study was actually measuring behaviour rather than opinions and feelings the study clearly showed that people often do not know how they would behave when put in a specific situation.  The study therefore clearly demonstrates how people do actually behave increasing the validity of the study.

The study is also consistent with other research into obedience such as that carried out by Milgram and Meeus and Raaijmakers as it also demonstrating the high levels of obedience to authority even though the participants are being requested to do something that they know is wrong.  However, Rank and Jacobson (1977) did find that when the drug was a familiar one (Valium) only 2 out of 18 nurses obeyed in a similar set up to Hofling’s.  This suggests that it was not just the power of the doctor that affect the behaviour of the nurses but also a lack of specific knowledge about the drug.

A further strength of the study is that it highlights the need to provide training that does not encourage automatic obedience in all situations.  Nurses should be trained to take time to think through their actions, especially in non emergency situations.

Although the study was very highly controlled, for example identical boxes of capsules were always used, because it was carried out in the field it would not have been possible to control all of the variables during the testing for example the nurses may have been distracted by a particular patient, although the researcher was watching to avoid this happening.

The study can of course be criticised on ethical grounds.  There was no informed consent as the nurses were not aware they were being studied, although this would not have been possible as their behaviour would have been affected. Similarly the nurses were not aware that they could withdraw from the study and of course they were deceived and perhaps worst of all they would have left the study knowing that their professional judgement was in question as they would have overdosed a patient.  However it is worth noting that the study was carried out before the introduction of ethical guidelines and the nurses were debriefed.