Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

SY Psychology - obedience > DISPOSITIAL FACTORS AFFECTING OBEDIENCE > Flashcards

DISPOSITIAL FACTORS AFFECTING OBEDIENCE Flashcards

You may prefer our related Brainscape-certified flashcards:
Psychology 101 flashcards GRE® Psychology flashcards AP® Psychology flashcards
1
Q

Individual Differences - Authoritarian personality

A

Adorno argued that the key to understanding extreme obedience and racial prejudice early in childhood experiences one personality is formed

Authoritarian personalities have a tendency to be extremely obedient

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

Why do people have Authoritarian personalities?

A

Adorno found that pps who had been brought up by strict parents who used physical punishment often grew up to be very obedient
Authoritarians often come from cold and unloving families with a hostile atmosphere that withdraw affection as a mental punishment

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

How did Adorno study his theory?

A
  • Adorno interviewed 2000 US students from mainly white middle class backgrounds
  • He spoke to them about their childhood experiences
  • He used projective tests to gain access to their unconscious thoughts and assess their levels of obedience and prejudice
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

What is the F scale?

A

It measures how authoritarian an individual is
How patriotic and traditional an individuals views tend to be

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

Authoritarianism - conventionalism
(people with high F scores will be more conventionalist)

A

They believe that obedience and respect for authority of the most important virtues children should learn
They believe that rules are very important

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

Authoritarianism - Aggression

A

They get aggressive when people break social norms and have unconventional views
People with high F scores do not challenge things/authority

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Authoritarianism - power and toughness

A

People with high scores think people can be divided into two distinct classes: strong (hardworking) and weak (lazy)
(Social dominance orientation)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

Authoritarian personality (strength) - Elms and Milgram

A

They interviewed Milgrams participants and found that pps who were really obedient/went to 450 V scored higher on authoritarianism tests

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

Authoritarian personality (strength) - Damnrun & Vatine

A

They created a simulation of Milgrams experiment using a virtual environment/computer simulation and found that authoritarianism was linked to obedience, as high authoritarian scores = less likely to withdraw from the study

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

Authoritarian personality (Weakness) - Middendrop & Meloen

A

They found that less educated people are consistently more authoritarian. This suggests that education can be linked to authoritarianism and obedience.
Adorno does not mention anything about education

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

Authoritarian personality (Weakness) - Chan

A

Chan found that refugees of the Chinese revolution have high authoritarian personalities, but gradually changed when they moved to the USA

  • Their authoritarian personality is not due to family but developed from school (going against Adorno’s claims)
  • Their personality change when they moved to the USA, suggesting that authoritarian personalities are not fixed
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

Authoritarian personality (Weakness) - Elms & Milgram

A

Elms and Milgram also found that pps who went up to 450 V and scored high on the authoritarianism test, also had a loving relationship with their parents
(going against Adorno’s claims)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

What does charisma have to do with obedience?

A

Charismatic leaders may contribute to obedience and enhance peoples tendency towards destructive obedience
E.g - Hitler and Stalin were regarded as charismatic leaders. Conversely charismatic leadership can also bring positive change.
E.g Gandhi and Martin Luther King

Charisma is best understood in terms of the characteristics of the leader and the relationship they have with their followers

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

Characteristics of a charismatic leader

A

Charismatic leaders have a clear vision, clear reason to obey them and emotional language

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

What does dispositional factors mean?

A

= individual differences and personality trait that affect an individuals level of obedience

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

Dispositional factors

A
  • Authoritarian personality
  • Locus of control
  • Gender
  • Empathy
  • Culture
17
Q

Who came up with the concept “locus of control”?

A

Rotter (1966)

18
Q

What does internal locus of control refer to?

A

An individuals perception of their personal control over events in their own life and their own behaviour

  • Someone with a strong internal locus of control, believes that they can control events to an extent and what happens to them is a result of their own ability and effort. They generally display independence in adult behaviour and rely less on other peoples opinions (they are more able to resist social influence)
19
Q

What does external locus of control refer to?

A
  • When an individual has a strong belief in luck, fate and other peoples opinions, they believe that things that happen are out of their control
  • People with strong internal locus of control tend to take less personal responsibility for their actions and are less likely to display independent behaviour and follow the influence of others
20
Q

Locus of control - Spector (1982)

A
  • He suggests that high internals tend to be more achievement-oriented and consequently more likely to become leaders rather than follow others
  • He found that a relationship between locus and control & leadership style exists with internals being more persuasive and goal orientated than externals
21
Q

Locus of control - Miller (1975)

A
  • He conducted a study were a high or low status researcher instructions pps to grasp live electric wires
  • Internals were unaffected by the status of the researcher and obeyed less than the externals whatever the status of the researcher
  • Externals were more likely to obey with a high status researcher
  • He found that people with high internal locus of control, I’m more likely to show decent
22
Q

Locus of control - Schurz (1985)

A
  • He conducted a study similar to Milgrams procedure
  • He instructed Austrian pps to give painful doses of ultrasound to a female student
  • There was a little different in locus of control between those who obeyed and those who descended
  • Suggesting locus of control has a little effect on obedience levels
    (gender is worth noting)
23
Q

Locus of control - Oliner & Oliner

A
  • Interviewed 2 groups of non-Jewish people who lived through the Holocaust
  • Comparing the 406 who had protected and rescued Jews from the Nazis with 126 who had not acted
  • They found that ‘rescuers’ had scores demonstrating high internal locus of control and scored high on measures of social responsibility
24
Q

Locus of control - Evaluation

A
  • From most of the studies, it appears that locus of control and social responsibility are both factors of an individuals ability to disobey orders and a social norms
25
Q

Individual difference - Empathy

A

We assume people who have high levels of empathy will be less likely to harm others when instructed to do so by perceived authority figure
However
Burger (2009) - who tested empathy before conducting his study - found that although people who scored high on empathy tests were more likely to protest against giving electric shocks, this did not translate to lower levels of obedience

26
Q

Individual differences - Gender - Kilham & Mann

A

Conducted a replication of Milgram’s study in Australia
- They found a significant difference in levels of obedience between male and female students
- Their study had males shocking males and females shocking females
(with a male experimenter)

Males = 40% obedient
Females = 16% obedient

  • Perhaps females were more reluctant to shock other females or possibly females joined together against the situation in alliance to react against the demands of the aggressive male experimental - relating to social impact theory
27
Q

Individual differences - Gender - Blass (1998)

A
  • He studied 9 other replications of Milgram’s study which also had male and female pps
  • Consistent with Milgrams own findings 8/9 times, there was no evidence of any gender differences regarding obedience
28
Q

Individual differences - Gender - Sheridan & King

A
  • Adapted Milgrams experiment, using live puppies as the learner
  • All 13 female pps were much more compliant with the demands made by the authority figure

Females = 100% obedience rate
Males = 54% obedience rate

29
Q

Individual differences - Gender - developmental psychology

A
  • According to gender role scheme theory, individuals develop a sense of masculinity and femininity as they are raised and socialised
  • These gender role schemas or stereotypes affect how we perceive ourselves and others (they depict men as strong & aggressive and females as quiet & compliant)
  • Conversely, biological explanations of gender might suggest that as males are exposed to more testosterone, they will potentially behave in a more aggressive manner, and therefore will be more likely inflict greater levels of harm as a result of destructive obedience
  • However these predictions of behaviour based on gender do not appear to be true

Conclusion - It seems there is little, if any gender difference in obedience despite traditional beliefs that females would be more compliant to the demands of authority

30
Q

Individual differences - Gender - Milgram’s variation

A
  • Milgram’s original research was androcentric and only accounted for male obedience
  • He conducted a variation where he studied females
  • After comparing the results to his previous research, he found that there is no significant difference between male and female obedience
31
Q

Individual differences - Culture - Regarding obedience, what are the two types of cultural factors?

A

Individualist and Collectivist

32
Q

What are individualistic cultures?

A

(such as the UK and US)
- Individualistic cultures tend to behave in more independent less conformist or compliant ways
- Tend to be less obedience

33
Q

What are collectivist cultures?

A

(such as China or Israel)
- Collectivist cultures tend to behave more as a collective group based on interdependence meaning that cooperation and compliance are regarded as important for the stability of the group
- They tend to place the interest of the wider group above their own individual interests which may explain why they are more obedient

34
Q

How is the obedience of a culture ranked?

A

Countries are ranked on PDI scores

  • High PDI cultures value respect and less likely to challenge authority
  • Low PDI cultures see lower levels of obedience and higher levels of individualism
35
Q

Who came up with PDI scores and what does it mean?

A

= Hofstede (2017)
= Power Distance Index (PDI)
The relationship between those with power and society and those with less power

36
Q

Individual differences - Culture - Milgram variation

A
  • Milgram replicated to study in India Where PDI scores are 77%
  • Obedience levels in India were only 42.5%
  • In his original study obedience in the US was 63%

This contradicts the expectation of the PDI relationship to obedience

37
Q

Individual differences - Culture - Hamilton & Sanders

A
  • Conducted a study with US, Japanese, and Russian pps
  • Presented pps with scenarios where a crime was either an individualist idea or the order of a superior
  • Pps had to attribute a level of responsibility for each scenario
  • US pps attributed more personal responsibility to individualists acting criminally under orders than Japanese and Russian pps did
    (thus obedience might be more important in Japanese and Russian culture than US culture)
  • Obeying even criminally wrong orders might be seen as appropriate more in Japan and Russia than in the US

SY Psychology - obedience (8 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions