explanations For Obediance

Question 1

Who studied obedience

Answer 1

Milgram (1963) studied obedience.

Question 2

What was the aim of milgrams study

Answer 2

Milgram wanted to find out if ordinary American citizens would obey an unjust order from an authority figure and inflict pain on another person because they were instructed to.

Question 3

Procedure of Milgrams study

Answer 3

Milgram’s sample consisted of 40 male participants aged 20-50 from a range of occupations and backgrounds. The participants were all volunteers who had responded to an advert in a local paper, which offered $4.50 to take part in an experiment on ‘punishment and learning’.
The participants were all invited to a laboratory at Yale University and upon arrival they met with the experimenter and another participant, Mr Wallace, who were both confederates.
The experimenter explained that one person would be randomly assigned the role of teacher and the other assigned the role of learner. However, the real participant was always assigned the role of teacher. The experimenter explained that the teacher, the real participant, would read the learner a series of word pairs and then test their recall. The learner, who was positioned in an adjacent room, would indicate his choice using a system of lights. The teacher was instructed to administer an electric shock every time the learner made a mistake and to increase the voltage after each mistake.
The teacher watched the learner being strapped to the electric chair and was given a sample electric shock to convince them that the procedure was real. The learner wasn’t actually strapped to the chair and gave predetermined answers to the test. As the electric shocks increased the learner’s screams, which were recorded, became louder and more dramatic. At 180 volts the learner complained of a weak heart. At 300 volts he banged on the wall and demanded to leave and at 315 volts he became silent, to give the illusions that was unconscious, or even dead.
The experiment continued until the teacher refused to continue, or 450 volts was reached. If the teacher tried to stop the experiment, the experimenter would respond with a series of prods, for example: ‘The experiment requires that you continue.’ Following the experiment the participants were debriefed.

Question 4

Findings of Milgrams study

Answer 4

Milgram found that all of the real participants went to at least 300 volts and 65% continued until the full 450 volts. Only 12.5% stopped at 300v.

Question 5

Conclusion of Milgrams study

Answer 5

He concluded that the Germans weren’t a different kind of people, and that under the right circumstances ordinary people were just as likely to obey unjust orders.

Question 6

Evaluation of Milgrams study

Answer 6

Generalisability

Ethics

Validity

Question 7

Evaluation of Milgrams study: generalisability

Answer 7

Milgram’s research lacked population validity. Milgram used a bias sample of 40 male volunteers, which means we are unable to generalise the results to other populations, in particular females, and cannot conclude if female participants would respond in a similar way.

Question 8

Evaluation of Milgrams study:
Ethics

Answer 8

Ethics- Milgram’s study has been heavily criticised for breaking numerous ethical guidelines, including: deception, right to withdraw and protection from harm. Milgram deceived his participants as he said the experiment was on ‘punishment and learning’, when in fact he was measuring obedience, and he pretended the learner was receiving electric shocks. In addition, it was very difficult for participants with withdraw from the experiment, as the experimenter prompted the participants to continue. Finally, many of the participants reported feeling exceptionally stressed and anxious while taking part in the experiment and therefore they were not protected from psychological harm. This is an issue, as Milgram didn’t respect his participants, some of whom felt very guilty following the experiment, knowing that they could have harmed another person.

Question 9

Evaluation of Milgrams study:
Validity

Answer 9

Validity- Milgram’s study has been criticised for lacking ecological validity. Milgram tested obedience in a laboratory, which is very different setting to real-life situations of obedience, where people are often asked to follow more subtle instructions, rather than administering electric shocks. The task itself has low mundane realism as it is a highly unrealistic task for participants to carry out.

Question 10

variations in Milgram’s studies

Answer 10

•proximity
•Location
•uniform

Question 11

Variation 1: Proximity

Answer 11

Variation 1: Proximity,
proximity affects the participant’s awareness of how the shocks are affecting the learner. Proximity was manipulated via physical location and distance. When the learner and the teacher were in the same room obedience dropped to 40%. When the teacher had to place the learner’s hand on the “shock plate” obedience dropped to 30%.

Question 12

Variation 2: Location,

Answer 12

Variation 2: Location,
Legitimate authority influences how likely someone is to obey. When the site of the research was moved from Yale University to an office block in a run-down area obedience dropped to 47.6%.

Question 13

Variation 3: Uniform,

Answer 13

Variation 3: Uniform,
The use of appropriate clothing also demonstrates the legitimacy of the authority. In the variation where the experimenter is called away due to an ‘urgent phone call’ and the role of experimenter is given to another confederate in normal clothing obedience dropped to 20%.

Question 14

Evaluations for variations in Milgrams study

Answer 14

A study supporting the third variation is Bickman (1974). Bickman investigated the effect of uniform worn by confederates on obedience. The confederates asked members of the public on the streets of New York to either pay into a parking meter or collect rubbish off the street. Obedience when dressed in a suit was 19%, in a milkman uniform was 14%, and in a guard uniform was 38%. This supports Milgram’s concept that some uniforms have more legitimate authority than others, and as a field experiment it can be argued to have higher external validity and avoids demand characteristics as participants unaware they are in an experiment.

It can be argued that some variations are less likely to be seen as a legitimate study on memory and learning, so more at risk of demand characteristics. For example the variation with the learner in the same room and having their hand forced onto the plate would require good acting skills to come across as genuine.

Question 15

What is the agentic state

Answer 15

The Agentic state is the idea that the individual believes that they don’t have responsibility for their behaviour as they are acting as on behalf (as an agent) of an authority figure. The Agentic state allows individuals to commit acts that they morally oppose. They will often feel discomfort as a result of their actions but feel that they are unable to resist the demands of the person in authority.

Question 16

what is the autonomous state

Answer 16

The autonomous state where individual’s actions are free from control, and so they feel that they have responsibility for their actions and behave according to their moral values. Moving from the autonomous state to the agentic state is known as the agentic shift.

Question 17

what is Legitimacy of authority

Answer 17

Legitimacy of authority is the idea that individuals accept that other individuals who are higher up the social hierarchy should be obeyed, that there is a sense of duty in obeying them.
Legitimacy of authority is learnt in childhood through socialisation processes such as the relationship between parent and child, teacher and student ..etc. This idea extends to suggest that some people have the right to punish/harm others such as the police force and in the criminal justice system.
It is accepted by most people that legitimacy of authority is needed in order for society to function properly.

Question 18

Evaluation for legitimacy of authority

Answer 18

Milgram’s (1963)

Blass and Schmitt (2001)

Question 19

Milgram’s (1963)

Answer 19

Milgram’s (1963) research demonstrates the power of the legitimacy of authority with the scientist/professor/experimenter occupying a high level in the social hierarchy due to extensive education and respect for science as a discipline. It also demonstrates that the agentic state as often participants would only continue after the experimenter clarified that he was responsible for the situation.
However, 35% of participants still resisted the authority of the experimenter and refused to deliver the 450v shock to the ‘learner’ in the experiment. If the agentic state was true of all people then all would have given the full shock.

Question 20

Blass and Schmitt (2001)

Answer 20

Blass and Schmitt (2001) demonstrated the strength of the idea of the legitimacy of authority, as when shown videos of Milgram’s study many people placed responsibility for the shocks on the experimenter, not the participant.
There have been many cases in history that have demonstrated the negative consequences of when powerful individuals use the Agentic state to commit terrible war crimes. For example the Nazi in charge of death camps, Eichmann, claimed that he was only following orders.

Question 21

What is the Dispositional explanation for obedience ?

Answer 21

the Authoritarian Personality.

Question 22

The Authoritarian Personality.

Answer 22

Theodor Adorno wanted to understand anti-semitism in WW2. Unlike Milgram who argued that we are all capable of extreme obedience, Adorno argued that high levels of obedience resulted from a psychological disorder linked to aspects of personality.
In the 1950s Adorno studied personality with questionnaires. Questions were designed to show unconscious feelings towards minority groups. After studying over 2000 mainly middle class white Americans, he developed the F scale.
One of the nine factors measured was authoritarian aggression. That is the tendency to be on the lookout for, and to condemn, reject, and punish people who violate conventional rules. This trait was tested by questions such as “Most of our social problems would be solved if we could somehow get rid of the immoral, crooked, and feeble-minded people”. People then had to choose on a Likert scale how much they agreed with the statement.
People who scored highly on the F scale showed great respect for people with high social status. They had fixed stereotyped for other groups and identified with “strong” people and disliked “weak” people. They were inflexible with strong, clear ideas of right and wrong with no middle ground.
Adorno argued that these people had their personalities shaped very early in life by strict, authoritarian parenting and harsh physical punishment. He linked these ideas to Freud’s work. Adorno suggested that this anger and resentment that they felt towards their parents was the displaced onto other, mainly minority groups.

Question 23

Evaluation for legitimacy of authority

Answer 23

Milgram and Elms (1966)

Middendorp and Meleon (1990)

Question 24

Milgram and Elms (1966)

Answer 24

Milgram and Elms (1966) interviewed some of the participants who had taken part in the first 4 Milgram studies and found that those that had shocked to the full 450v scored higher on the F scale than those who had refused to continue. This shows that Milgram’s research supports Adorno’s ideas.

An issue with this is that the finding is correlational. Correlation is not causation. It may not be that people with authoritarian personalities are more likely to follow orders. It could be that people on lower incomes are both more likely to follow orders out of desperation to please and thus also score more highly on the F scale.

Question 25

Middendorp and Meleon (1990)

Answer 25

Middendorp and Meleon (1990) has found that less-educated people are more likely than well-educated people to display authoritarian personality characteristics. If these claims are correct, then it is possible to conclude that it is not authoritarian personality characteristics alone that lead to obedience, but also levels of education, which therefore undermines the authoritarian personality explanation for obedience as other factors may also play an important role.