4.1.1 EXPLANATIONS FOR OBEDIENCE

Question 1

what is obedience?

Answer 1

• obedience is a type of social influence which causes a person to act in response to an order given by another person
• the person who gives the order usually has power or authority

Question 2

what was Milgram’s initial interest in obedience sparked by?

Answer 2

• Milgram’s initial interest in obedience was sparked by the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 for inter war crimes during WW2
• Eichmann had been in charge of the Nazi death camps
• his defence: he’d only been ‘obeying others’

Question 3

what are the two social-psychological explanations?

Answer 3

they concern the influences of others on an individuals behaviour - rather than external factors in the situation

two theories are:
- agentic state
- legitimacy theory

Question 4

what does Milgram claim obedience occurs due to?

Answer 4

• the external authority
  authority of the authority figure
• the internal authority
  authority of our own conscience

when orders come from a figure of authority we can easily deny personal responsibly because it’s assumed they’ll take ultimate responsibility
- when this happens we become ‘agents’ of an external authority

Question 5

what is the agentic shift?

Answer 5

= when the fully obedient person undergoes a psychological adjustment / shift and they see themselves as an agent of external authority

Question 6

people have two ways of acting - what are these?

Answer 6

• autonomous state
• agentic state

Question 7

what is the autonomous state?

Answer 7

individuals direct their own behaviour and take responsibly for the consequences

Question 8

what is the agentic state?

Answer 8

individuals allow someone else to direct their behaviour, they pass responsibility to them

Question 9

when do people move from the autonomous state into the agentic state?

Answer 9

they move from autonomous to agentic when confronted with an authority figure

• this shift form autonomy to ‘agency’ is called the agentic shift
• this allows the individual to take no personal responsibility for the actions

Question 10

what is moral strain?

Answer 10

if we obey an order that goes against our conscience, we’re likely to experience moral strain

• results when we have to do something we believe to be immoral in order to function as an agent of authority

Question 11

what are binding factors?

Answer 11

aspects of the situation that allow a person to take away their own ‘moral strain’ and ignore the damaging effect of their behaviour

Question 12

what is legitimacy of authority?

Answer 12

an explanation for obedience which suggests that we’re more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us

• this authority is justified by society (legitimate) by the individual’s position of power within a social hierarchy
• authority figures need to be allowed to exercise power over others as this allows society to continue to function in an orderly fashion

Question 13

Milgram looked at the agentic state as an explanation of obedience
- what led him to do this?

Answer 13

• initial interest in obedience was sparked by the trail of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 for war crimes during WW2
• Eichmann had been in charge of the Nazi death camps
• his defence = he’d only been ‘obeying orders’

Question 14

what is destructive authority?

when can it be shown?

Answer 14

• history has shown all too often that powerful leaders like Hitler and Stalin, can use their estimate powers for destructive purposes
• destructive authority was shown in Milgram’s study when the experiments uses prods to order ppts to behave in ways that went against their conscience

Question 15

agentic state AO3 pros

Blass and Schmitt research support
- what’s the method?

Answer 15

• showed a film of Milgram’s study to students
• asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the learner (Mr Wallace)

Question 16

agentic state AO3 pros

Blass and Schmitt research support
what are the findings?

Answer 16

• the students indicated that the responsibility was due to legitimate authority
  -> experimenter was top of the hierarchy + therefore had legitimate authority
• also due to expert authority (he was a scientist)
• recognised legitimate authority as the cause of obedience
  -> supporting this explanation!

Question 17

cons of agentic state AO3

Answer 17

1) limited explanation
- doesn’t explain many of the research findings
eg) doesn’t explain why some ppts didn’t obey
-> humans are social animals + involved in social hierarchies so should all obey

2) suggests that at best agentic shift can only account for some situs of obedience

3) doesn’t explain findings from Holfing et al’s study
- agentic shift predicts that as the nurses handed over responsibility to the doctor, they should have shown levels of anxiety to Milgram’s ppts
- as they understood their role in a destructive process but that wasn’t the case

Question 18

pro of legitimacy of authority AO3

Answer 18

1) cultural differences
- is a useful account of cultural differences in obedience
- many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which ppl are traditionally obedient to authority

eg) Kilham and Mann (1974)
- replicated MIlgram’s procedure in Australia
- found that only 16% of their ppts went all the way to the top of the voltage scale

Question 19

what was the aim of Milgram’s research?

Answer 19

• to discover why such a high proportion of German people supported Hitler’s regime
• why many of the Nazi party committed atrocities in the name of ‘following orders’

Question 20

who were the ppts in Milgram’s study and how did he recruit them?

Answer 20

• 40 american men volunteered to take part in Milgram’s study at Yale university
• he recruited them through newspaper ads / flyers in post
• said he was looking for ppts for study on memory
• offered $4.50 to take part

Question 21

what was the method of Milgram’s study?

Answer 21

• when each ppt arrived to take part they were introduced to another ppt (who was a confederate to Milgram)
• the 2 ppts drew lots to see who would be the ‘teacher’ and who would be the ‘learner’
• the draw was fixed so the genuine ppt was always the teacher + the confederate the learner
• an experimenter was also involved who was also a confederate + was dressed in a grey lab coat
• one ppt (confederate) was asked to learn a set of word pairs + the teacher would test knowledge of this
• placed in adjacent rooms + the teacher was positioned in front of a set of controls to administer electric shocks to the learner
• teacher was told to punish learner w a shock after wrong answer

Question 22

what was the teacher told to do to the learner?
what were they aware of?
what was Milgram testing?
what happened if they were reluctant?

Answer 22

• instructed to punish the learner w a shock after each wrong answer he gave
• they were unaware their compliance wouldn’t result in an actual shock to the confederate, who has to enact responses to the punishments
• tested ppts willingness to obey by instructing the experimenters to administer higher shocks
• when the teacher displayed reluctance to injure the learner, they were encouraged to continue the procedure

Question 23

what does experimental / internal validity mean?

Answer 23

• ppts should behave as they would normally do in that situation
• experiment should measure obedience in general

Question 24

what is some evidence for (pros) experimental / internal validity in Milgram’s study?
AO3

Answer 24

• ppts must have believed the task, willing to be given strong shocks
• Rosehan (1969) found almost 70% of ppts believed the set-up
• Milgram said the experiments follow similar rules to social situations so are true to life
• Milgram informed ppts they could leave + would still be paid

Question 25

what is some evidence for (cons) experimental / internal validity in Milgram’s study?
AO3

Answer 25

• ppts were paid to take part
• some say payment for participation means that the ppts are entering a ‘contract’
• Milgram’s findings are evidence of obedience in a contract rather than obedience in general

Question 26

how does Milgram’s study relate to ecological validity?

Answer 26

• Milgram’s original study in a laboratory setting
• questioned whether the findings can be generalised to real-life

BUT

• Milgram (1974) did variations of the study in other settings
• ppts thought that the experiment was real, so we can argue that it’s ecologically valid
• it can be said to hold ecological validity as cross-cultural studies produce the same findings

Question 27

a strength of Milgram’s research is that his findings have been replicated in studies with other cultures (cross-cultural replication)
elaborate..

Answer 27

• Meeus and Raaijmakers (1968)
  -> studied obedience in Dutch ppts
  -> they were instructed to say stressful things in an interview to someone who was desperate for a job
  (and who was a confederate)
  -> 90% obeyed

BUT

• Smith and Bond (1998)
  -> showed that replications of Milgram’s research weren’t very multi-cultural
  -> were only able to find 2 replications that were conducted in non-western cultures

Question 28

what are some ethical issues in Milgram’s study?

Answer 28

ppts were deceived in multiple way
- ppts thought the allocation of roles of both Teacher and Learner was random but they weren’t as Milgram’s confederate was always the learner
- ppts believed the electric shocks were real

• Milgram debriefed the ppts afterward to ensure they understood the real intentions of the experiment

Question 29

how does Bickman’s study support Milgram’s conclusion about uniform?

Answer 29

• in NYC, Bickman had 3 confederates dress in 2 different outfits

1) jacket and tie
2) a milkman outfit
3) security guard uniform

• the confederates stood in the street and asked ppts to perform tasks like picking up litter / giving the confederate a coin for parking
• ppl were twice as likely to obey the confederate in the security uniform than the jacket and tie
• supports Milgram’s conclusion that uniform conveys the authority of the wearer + affects obedience

Question 30

why did Milgram’s do variations of his study?

Answer 30

• to discover if features of the situation would make obedience more or less likely
• so he investigated SITUATIONAL VARIABLES

Question 31

what are the three situations variables that Milgram investigated?

Answer 31

1) proximity
2) location
3) uniform

Question 32

how did Milgram change the proximity of the study?

Answer 32

1) in his original procedure, the Teacher could hear the Learner but couldn’t see him
- in the proximity variation, both were moved to the same room
- obedience rate dropped from 65% to 40%

2) touch proximity variation, teacher had to force the learners hand onto the electroshock plate
- obedience rate dropped further to 30%

3) remote instruction variation, experimenter left the room and gave instructions by telephone
- obedience rate dropped to 20.5%

Question 33

how did Milgram change the location variable of his study?

Answer 33

• he conducted a variation in a run-down office block rather than Yale University
• assuming this gave the experimenter less authority
• obedience fell to 47.5%

Question 34

how did Milgram change the uniform variable in his study?

Answer 34

• the experimenter was called away and replaced by an ‘ordinary member of the public’ (confederate)
  -> so they weren’t wearing the uniform of a grey lab coat
• obedience rate dropped to the lowest of all variations to 20%

Question 35

why is the control a strength of Milgram’s study?

Answer 35

• he systemically changed one variable at a time in each variation to see the effect it would have on obedience
• thus highly controlled + each time all of the other variables were kept the same
• this means the procedure was repeated with over 1000 ppts total
  (large sample size)