D Mock - Obedience

Question 1

What is obedience?

Answer 1

Obedience is the result of social influence, where somebody acts in response to a direct order from an authority figure.

Question 2

What’s are the TWO differences between Conformity and obedience?

Answer 2

A difference in why we change our behaviour -> group pressure or explicit orders.
A difference in who is responsible for the change in behaviour -> others of equal status or those of higher status

Question 3

What year did Milgram’s investigation take place?

Answer 3

1963

Question 4

What was Milgram’s aim?

Answer 4

To find out whether ordinary Americans would obey an unjust order from an authority figure, and to discover whether this was situational or dispositional factors which led a person to obey.

Question 5

Milgram’s sample consisted of how many male volunteers? How much were they payed?

Answer 5

40 male volunteers
Each payed $4.50

Question 6

What were the volunteers told Milgram’s study was about?

Answer 6

An experiment for punishment in learning

Question 7

The participant played the role of the ______, and the confederate played the role of the ______.

Answer 7

The participant played the role of the teacher, and the confederate played the role of the learner.

Question 8

What was the confederate/ learner’s task?

Answer 8

To memorise word pairs

Question 9

How many levers were there in Milgram’s experiment?

Answer 9

30

Question 10

The shocks started at __V and role in these increments to ___V.

Answer 10

15
450

Question 11

If the participant (teacher) hesitated in administrating the shocks, the researcher would issue a series of prods:
‘Please ________’
‘The experiment _________ that you continue’
‘It is absolutely _________ that you continue’
‘You have no ______, you must go on.’

Answer 11

‘Please continue’
‘The experiment requires that you continue’
‘It is absolutely essential that you continue’
‘You have no choice, you must go on.’

Question 12

To start with, the confederate (learner) gave correct answers, but then began to make _______.

Answer 12

mistakes

Question 13

How many participants went up to 300 volts?

Answer 13

All of them

Question 14

What percentage of participants went up to the final voltage of 450V?

Answer 14

65%

Question 15

What was Milgram’s conclusion?

Answer 15

Under certain circumstances, most people will obey orders that go against their conscience.

Question 16

Were all participants debriefed?

Answer 16

Yes

Question 17

When the venue moved to seedy offices in a nearby town, what was the obedience rate (those going to 450V)?

Answer 17

47.5%

Question 18

When the teacher and learner were in the same room, what was the obedience rate (those going to 450V)?

Answer 18

40%

Question 19

When the teacher had to force the learner’s hand onto the electric plate to receive the shock, what was the obedience rate (those going to 450V)?

Answer 19

30%

Question 20

When the teacher was given support from two other ‘teachers’ (confederates) who refused to continue, what was the obedience rate (those going to 450V)?

Answer 20

10%

Question 21

When the teacher was paired with an assistant (confederate) who threw the switches, what was the obedience rate (those going to 450V)?

Answer 21

92.5%

Question 22

When the experimenter instructed and prodded the teacher via telephone from another room, what was the obedience rate (those going to 450V)?

Answer 22

20.5%

Question 23

Did Milgram lack internal validity?

Answer 23

Yes, as participants may not have believed the shocks were real

Question 24

Milgram used a volunteer sample. Why might this have been a weakness?

Answer 24

A certain ‘type’ may have come forward, so the results would only explain obedience in that ‘type’ of person.

Question 25

Why might Milgram have lacked population validity?

Answer 25

Andocentric (all male sample) not generalisable to females (beta bias)
Ethnocentric (white American males) not generalisable to other cultures

Question 26

Why might Milgram have lacked ecological validity?

Answer 26

Artificial nature of the experiment may not reflect real-life obedience

Question 27

How was Milgram unethical?

Answer 27

Broke protection from harm, deception, informed consent, and the right to withdraw.

Question 28

Give at least 3 strengths of Milgram:

Answer 28

Replicated studies have shown similar results.
Natural, observable behaviour.
Now, we have more knowledge of obedience to authority figures.
Reliable, as variations matched predicted results.
They were all debriefed.

Question 29

One factor affecting obedience is legitimacy of authority.
Describe this.

Answer 29

We feel obligated to those in authority, as we respect their credentials and assume they know what they’re doing.
Legitimate social power is held by authority figures, whose role is defined by society.

Question 30

One factor affecting obedience is legitimacy of authority.
Link it to Milgram’s variation.

Answer 30

Venue moved to seedy offices in a nearby town… obedience dropped to 47.5%

Question 31

One factor affecting obedience is legitimacy of authority.
Evaluate this

Answer 31

-> Milgram’s variation study showed that legitimacy of authority was a big factor in obedience.
-> There seem to be cultural differences in what is accepted as legitimate authority.
-> Legitimacy of authority can explain real-life war crimes

Question 32

One factor affecting obedience is the agentic state
Describe this

Answer 32

People obey a destructive authority as they don’t take responsibility for their behaviour.
They simply see themselves as agents of the authority figure rather than taking responsibility for their own actions.

Question 33

What is the agentic shift?

Answer 33

When people move from an autonomous state (aware of the consequences of their actions and behave voluntarily), to the agentic state (see themselves as the agents of the authority figure and not responsible for their own actions).

Question 34

One factor affecting obedience is the agentic state
Link this to Milgram’s variation

Answer 34

Milgram believed that many of his participants operated on an agentic level.
They were also told the experimenter would take responsibility for anything that happened to the learner.
In the variation, where responsibility was reduced further when another confederate flicked the switch, 92.5% continued to 450V.

Question 35

One factor affecting obedience is the agentic state
Evaluate this

Answer 35

-> It cannot explain why some people do not obey, or why some who make the agentic shift don’t always show signs of stress at doing so.
-> It also can’t explain why people obey when there isn’t an agentic shift made. I.e. when people have a choice to disobey, but choose not to. This suggests it can only explain some situations.

Question 36

One situational variable affecting obedience is UNIFORM.
How was this researched? What were the results?

Answer 36

In 1974, Bickman had 3 confederates in 3 different outfits. They stood in a street and gave passers-by tasks (eg. asked them to pick up litter).

People were twice as likely to obey the confederate in security guard uniform than the one in a jacket and tie.

Question 37

One situational variable affecting obedience was LOCATION.
How was this researched? What were the results?

Answer 37

Milgram moved the location to a rundown seedy office, different to the prestigious Yale University setting originally set in.

Obedience fell to 47.5%, suggesting participants felt there was less authority linked to this location, and therefore disobeyed due to lack of trust.

Question 38

One situational variable affecting obedience is PROXIMITY
How was this researched? What were the results?

Answer 38

Milgram put both the teacher and learner in the same room, where obedience fell to 40%

Question 39

The Authoritarian Personality is the dispositional explanation for obedience.
Explain this

Answer 39

Adorno (1950) claimed this specific personality type causes people to be very obedient towards those in authority, and very hostile to those considered inferior to them.

Question 40

The Authoritarian Personality is the dispositional explanation for obedience.
a) What was Adorno’s research?
b) Where did he believe this stemmed from?

Answer 40

Adorno (1950) investigated the causes of this personality using 2,000 middle-class white Americans.
He used the F-scale (Facism) questionnaire to assess their attitudes to racial groups.
Those scoring highly tended to have the Authoritarian Personality characteristics.

Adorno believed this personality stemmed from childhood with hard parenting. The child’s experiences create hostility and resentment, causing them to displace their fears on weaker people due to fear of punishment.

Question 41

The Authoritarian Personality is the dispositional explanation for obedience.
Evaluate this

Answer 41

-> Adorno’s research supported his theory that the Authoritarian Personality makes people more obedient
-> Milgram found that the most obedient participants tended to have this personality, but we can’t make this conclusion due to other possible factors which could have affected this
-> The Authoritarian Personality cannot explain why so many German WW2 soldiers obeyed an authority figure (unlikely that they all had this personality)
-> All of Adorno’s research is based on correlations (rather than causations) between F-scale scores and obedient behaviour. Therefore, not valid to conclude.