The Maryland Mcdonald's Strip Hoax

Milgram's obedience revisited: The Maryland McDonald's strip hoax

Andy McCarthy (Kent College, Canterbury & Canterbury Christ Church). 2012

Relevance: Social Influence and obedience to authority

Most, if not all psychology students know the Milgram (1963) "Shocking Obedience Study". It was 'ground breaking' research based on an elaborate 'deception'. This deception involved 'naive' participants (playing the role of 'teachers') believing they were administering potentially fatal electric shocks to a volunteer learner (actually a confederate of Milgram's but this was unknown to the real participants). This punishment was simply because they performed badly on a memory task!

Milgram (1963), demonstrated that 65% of participants were prepared to exceed the 300 volt level and deliver what they had been informed was a potentially lethal electric shock (450 volts). This study clearly demonstrated: Perception of authority, The Agentic Shift, 'Foot-in- the door effect coupled with gradual escalation and 'Obedience Alibi' making (Mandel 1998). In simple terms, this suggests if a person perceives the person giving instructions to be legitimate, then a chain of events may well take place. Firstly, the 'agentic shift' or diffusion of personal responsibility to the person in authority. This is followed by 'foot-in-the door' procedures to gain trust (sometimes referred to as 'creating a social contract'), coupled with a gradual escalation of behaviour towards what would under normal circumstances should not occur (no point in jumping straight in and saying "electrocute this person"). Finally, self-justification post-event: "don't blame me, I was only following orders"; often referred to as 'obedience alibi' making. (McCarthy & Lech, 2012)

In this experimental procedure (and in most subsequent experimental replications) all the determining procedures are clearly demonstrated; leaving one important question: were the participants really fooled?

To answer this, consider the following scenario:

It was a busy late afternoon shift at McDonalds, when the duty manageress received a telephone call from the police (perceived perception of authority). The policeman on the telephone described one of the McDonald's young female employees and requested that the manageress summoned her to the office. The manageress was then informed that it was suspected that her employee had committed a serious crime and because the police were busy/short staffed it would save time if the duty manageress carried out an official police-led interrogation (foot-in-the-door). The manageress was also informed that the store manager (correctly named) had agreed to this procedure along with a McDonald's executive. Then over a period of some three hours, this young female was initially questioned, strip searched, internally searched (vaginally and anally) for concealed drugs (slow graduation of request driven behaviour) and finally sexually assaulted/abused and forced to perform lurid sexual acts by the manageress' boyfriend; although not a McDonald's employee, he was called in from his home to help, because the restaurant was too busy for the manageress to complete the task. When interviewed after the event, they both claimed they were only following orders (obedience alibi making)!

The following incident actually took place: "A man who called himself "Officer Scott" called the McDonald`s store in Mount Washington on April 9, 2004, and said an employee had been accused of stealing a purse, Louise Ogborn (above) became the suspect. "He gave me a descri ption of the girl, and Louise was the one who fit it to the T," assistant manager Donna Jean Summers said. Identifying himself as a police officer, the caller issued an ultimatum: Ogborn could be searched at the store or be arrested, taken to jail and searched there. "I was bawling my eyes out and literally begging them to take me to the police station because I didn`t do anything wrong," Ogborn said later in a deposition. She had taken the $6.35-an-hour position after her mother lost her job. "I couldn`t steal I`m too honest. I stole a pencil one time from a teacher and I gave it back." Summers, 51, conceded later that she had never known Ogborn to do a thing dishonest. But she nonetheless led Ogborn to the restaurant`s small office, locked the door, and following the caller`s instructions ordered her to remove one item of clothing at a time, until she was naked. "She was crying," recalled Kim Dockery, 40, another assistant manager, who stood by watching. "A little young girl standing there naked wasn`t a pretty sight." Summers said later that "Officer Scott," who stayed on the telephone, giving his orders, sounded authentic. He said he had "McDonald`s corporate" on the line, as well as the store manager, whom he mentioned by name. And she thought she could hear police radios in the background.

Summers shook each garment, placed it in a bag and took the bag away. "I did exactly what he said to do," Summers said of her caller. It was just after 5 p.m., and for Ogborn, hours of degradation and abuse were just beginning." (Web ref 1)

Amazingly the whole incident was caught on the security camera in the office:

It was the store's maintenance man who drew the whole incident to a close and called the 'real' police and it very quickly became clear that the incident was a cruel hoax. After extensive police investigations and subsequent prosecutions: The duty manageress' boyfriend was found guilty of sexual abuse and received 5 years imprisonment (minimum 2yrs), the duty manageress was found guilty of unlawful imprisonment and received one years probation, the victim eventually (2010) received $1.1 Million in compensation damages & costs, McDonald's had to pay $2.4 Million in costs and although a suspect was arrested, he was not convicted due to a lack of direct evidence. Louise Ogborn is still receiving psychological counseling to help deal with the after effects of the trauma. (Web ref 2)

A quite shocking real life tale, which clearly demonstrates all the processes as demonstrated by Milgram years earlier. Not surprisingly, the McDonald's incident has recently been made into a movie. 'Compliance' (released September 2012: France) directed by Craig Zobel, "A prank caller convinces a fast food restaurant manager to interrogate an innocent young employee; no-one is left unharmed." (Web ref 3)

References Mandel, D. R. (1998). The obedience alibi: Milgram`s account of the Holocaust reconsidered. Analyse & Kritik: Zeitschrift fur Sozialwissenschaften, 20, 74-94.

McCarthy, A. & Lech, A. (Feb 2012). Situational Factors, Social Influence and Extremes of Human Behaviour. ATP Today (ISSN: 0305-7607) and online.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378.

Web 1 and picture acknowledgements:

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20051009/NEWS01/510090392/A-hoax-most-cruel-Caller-coaxed-McDonald-s-managers-into-strip-searching-worker Accessed: 09/08/12

Web 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strip_search_prank_call_scam Accessed: 09/08/12

Web 3: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1971352/ Accessed: 09/08/12

Link to ABC news video clip: It is advisable to watch this before showing students as it is quite distressing in parts. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqUm-Zk3_Ws

Accessed: 09/08/12

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Any comments/questions: amac54@btinternet.com