Explanations of Obedience

Question 1

What are the three factors shown to affect obedience?

Answer 1

Proximity, Location and Uniform.

Question 2

What was the obedience rate up to 450 volts when the teacher and learner were in the same room in Milgrams study? (Proximity)

Answer 2

40%

Question 3

What was the obedience rate when the teacher pressed the learner’s hand on the shock plate in Milgrams study? (Proximity)

Answer 3

30%

Question 4

What was the obedience rate when the experimenter gave orders through the phone in Milgrams study? (Proximity)

Answer 4

21%

Question 5

Why had many people claimed to have conformed in Milgrams original study? (Location)

Answer 5

Claimed they had continued delivering shocks because the research was being conducted at Yale University.

Question 6

Where did Milgram decide to carry out his study after the original one? (Location)

Answer 6

A run-down office in downtown Bridgeport.

Question 7

What was the obedience rate when the location was a run down office? (Location)

Answer 7

48%

Question 8

What did the experimenter wear in the original Milgram study? (Uniform)

Answer 8

A white laboratory coat.

Question 9

Who conducted a field experiment to study the effects of uniform on obedience?

Answer 9

Bickman (1988).

Question 10

Describe Bickman’s Field Experiment.

Answer 10

• Three male experimenters gave orders to 153 randomly selected pedestrians in Brooklyn, NYC.
• The experimenter’s were dressed in one of three ways: a jacket and tie, a milkman’s uniform and a guards uniform that looked like a police officer.
• The experimenter gave one of three orders including ‘This fellow has over paid at the meter but doesn’t have any change, give him a dime’

Question 11

What were the findings of Bickman’s experiment?

Answer 11

He found that when the experimenter was dressed as a guard, participants were more likely to obey than if he was dressed the other two ways. 92% of people complied with the request to lend money when asked by the experimenter compared to 49% when in ordinary clothes.

Question 12

What is legitimacy of authority?

Answer 12

This refers to the degree of social power held by the person who gives the order/instruction. Social power may be associated with social roles. From an early age we learn to obey those in positions of authority either because we trust them or because they have the power to punish us.

Question 13

Briefly describe Hofling’s study into the affect of legitimacy of authority.

Answer 13

• Identical boxes of capsules were placed in 22 wards of both public and private hospitals in the USA.
• The label indicated that the maximum daily dosage was 10mg (in fact the capsules were placeboes).
• Whilst the nurse was on duty a ‘doctor’ (confederate) instructed the nurse by telephone to give 20mg of the capsules to his patient.
• He said he would come to see his patient in 10 mins and that he would sign the authorisation document when he got there.
• To comply with this request, the nurse would be breaking three basic procedural rules: the dose was above the maximum daily dosage, drugs should only be given after written authority has been obtained and the nurse must be 100% sure that the doctor is a genuine doctor.

Question 14

What did Hofling’s study find? (Legitimacy of Authority?

Answer 14

21/22 nurses complied unhesitatingly! Eleven later said that they had not noticed the dosage discrepancy.

Question 15

What did Hofling find? (Legitimacy of Authority)

Answer 15

21/22 nurses complied unhesitatingly. 11 later said they had not noticed the dosage discrepancy.

Question 16

What is the autonomous state?

Answer 16

Where the individual is aware of the consequences of their actions and chooses voluntarily to behave in particular ways, accepting responsibility for their behaviour.

Question 17

What is the agentic state?

Answer 17

Where an individual sees themselves as an agent of another and carries out orders without accepting personal responsibility for their actions. They see the person giving the orders as responsible, not themselves.

Question 18

What is agentic shift?

Answer 18

The switch from operating as autonomous individual to acting as an agent for another person, usually an authority figure.

Question 19

When is agentic shift most likely to happen?

Answer 19

When there is the perception of legitimate authority.

Question 20

Where is there evidence for agentic shift?

Answer 20

In Milgram’s study, many of the participants had serious reservations about continuing to administer the electric shocks and asked the experimenter who would take responsibility. When told the experimenter, they continued to obey the experimenter.

Question 21

What type of explanation is the authoritarian personality?

Answer 21

A dispositional explanation- emphasise behaviour as being caused by an individual’s own personal characteristics rather than situational variables.

Question 22

What did Adorno argue the authoritarian personality made people?

Answer 22

More likely to be obedient and prejudiced.

Question 23

What did Adorno say were the authoritarian personality characteristics?

Answer 23

-Rigid beliefs in social conventions
-Intolerance of ambiguity
-Strict adherence of social rules and hierarchies
-General hostility towards other groups

Question 24

What did Adorno develop to measure the different components that make up the authoritarian personality?

Answer 24

The F-Scale (Fascist Scale)