Explanations Of Obediance Flashcards
Name one explanation of obediance.
Legitimacy of Authority
Explain what legitimacy of authority is.
-When obediant individuals accept the power and status of authority figures.
-e.g parents,teachers,police officers.we see the as being in charge
-The authority they have is seen as legitimate in the sense that it is agreed in society.
We accept there credentials and beleive they know what they are doing.
-Factors that affect the LOA (name one and explain procedure and finding)
Name another explanation for obedience.
Agentic state.
Explain the AO3 of gender bias in Milgrims study.
-He only used a male sample (androcentric)
-therefore the findings cannot be generalised to women
-some research suggest that women obey orders reguardless of the situational variable
-There gender roles dicatate that they are submissive.
e.g research done by Sherdian and King where they ordered people to give a electric shock to puppies 100% of women obeyed and only 54% of men did.
Explain when one is In a agentic state.
-individual moves from a state of taking personal responisbility(autonomous state)
-to a state where they believe they are acting on behalf of a authoritive figure(agentic state)
-this is a agentic shift
-in a agentic state the individual would have a loss of personal responsibility and and would be no longer guilty for there actions as they believe they are carrying out the wishes of a more knowledgeable authority figure(implicit/explicit instructions)
-more likely to obey in a agentic state.
Explain the AO3 that only supports agentic state?
-all participants in milgrims study stopped at a point
-participant=who is responsible if the learner is harmed
-experimenter=i am responsible
-participants often continued electric shocking the learner after this
-once they no longer believed that they were responsible for there actions they then obeyed the experimenter.
Explain the AO3 that mainly supports Legitimacy of authority.
HOFLING
-conducted a study with nurses who were instructed by a unknown doctor via the telephone to give a patients a lethal dose of drugs
-21 out of 22 nurses obeyed even when they were told not to take orders over the phone
-supports LOA as the nurses obeyed due to the unknown doctor having more authority.
How could Hofling’s study support agentic state?
Nurses could have felt that ultimately responsibility would go towards the doctor.
Explain the AO3 which counters both obedience explanations.
DISPOSITIONAL FACTORS
-obedience is due to internal characteristics
-e.g personality,upbringing
Explain the AO3 of cultural differences.
-takes into account of cultural differances in obediance
-in some cultures authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate
-this effect how different socities are structured and children are raised to perceive authority figure
-supported by cross cultural replication-australia 16% went to 450v
in germany 85% went to 450v.
Explain a weakness by Mandel 1998
-nazi’s obeyed the orders to shoot civilians in a small town in Poland
-They were told beforehand that they could take on other duties
-This contradicts as the soldiers chose to shoot the civilians over the other duties.
