Explanations of obedience Flashcards
What is the agentic shift:?
-When orders come from a figure of authority we can easily deny personal responsibility because it is assumed that they will take ultimate responsibility
-When this happens, we become ‘agents’ of an external authority
-Fully obedient people undergo a psychological adjustment or ‘shift’ and they see themselves as an agent of external authority.
What were milgrims opposing sets of demands?
The external authority -authority of the authority figure
The internal authority-authority of our own conscience
Milgrim+the agentic state:
-Sparked by the trials of Nazis who had worked in the death camps: their defence was that they had simply been obeying orders.
-Led milgrim to see agentic state as an explanation of obedience
What is the autonomous state?
-The opposite of the agentic state and means the person has an autonomy over their actions and can act accordingly to their principles.
What were the binding factors in milgrims experiment?
-During Milgrims experiment, he observed that many participants said they wanted to stop but they seemed powerless to do so
-Milgrim said this was due to them staying in an agentic state through binding factors
-Binding factors-aspects of the situation mean the individual is able to take away their own ‘moral strain’ and ignore their damaging behaviour.
What is legitimacy of authority?
-Human societies are ordered in hierarchical way where some have legitimate social power above those below in hierarchy.
-We learn via socialization that will be accepted if we obey those who have authority over us
-It is legitimate as it has been agreed by the society that these positions carry power and people accept this.
What is destructive authority and destructive obedience?
-When power is used for destructive purposes and when obedience is used to harm others
-In milgrims experiment, the experimenter displayed destructive authority when they were prodding and encouraging the teacher to continue with the electric shocks
-The participant demonstrated destructive obedience when they acted against their conscience.
What are the strengths of milgrims research on obedience?
P-practical applications
E-Milgrim has provided useful knowledge for society in helping us to understand how certain situational factors can influence people in society to obey and can be useful for policy makers trying to influence public behaviour
E-e.g could help to explain current events such as Russian soldiers wishing to stop fighting in Ukraine and yet continuing to obey.
P-Methological points as it was able to be replicated and to carefully manipulate the design of the study to investigate factors affecting obedience
E-By changing aspects of the design within his late variation studies, milgrim was able to gather information about the various situational factors, such as proximity, location and uniform.
L-Making obedience more (or less) likely.
What are the limitations of milgrims research on obedience?
P-crtitised for biased sample of Particpants
E-Gender biased (beta bias) as only male participants were used in the original study and so it was not possible to conclude that female students would have obeyed with similar rates to make students studied.
E-When replicated with female rates of obedience were also 65%.Also, problem of culture bias as all participants were American so findings of conformity may not be generalised to other populations
Maniell found obedience rates of 85% in Germany compared to Kilham and Mann who found obedience rates of 40% in Australia.
L-Suggest that perceptions of the legitimacy and respect of the authority may be affected by the wider societal norms:explaining the cultural variations in obedience rates
P-Milgrims view is that situational factors that create obedience is countered by a dispostional explanation for obedience-the authoritian personality(AP)
E-Claims people who have a greater belief in social hierarchies and have greater respect of authority figures will ‘naturally behave in a more obedient way, which can explain why in every variation some participants still obeyed
E-Elms and milgrim found those who had gone to 450v on shock generator were more to have traits of an ap
L-So some will always be obedient despite situational factors.
What did Milgrim want to research?
-Sought an answer to the question of why such a high proportion of the population obeyed Hitlers commands to murder 6 million Jews as well as 5 million Romans, homosexuals, poles and other social groups during the second world war
-Milgram thought that one possible explanation was that the Germans were different from other people in other countries, perhaps being more obedient (known as the dispositional explanation of obedience)
What was Milgrims procedure?
-40 American men volunteered to take part in Milgrims study at Yale supposedly on memory.
-When each volunteered arrived to take part, they were introduced to another participant (who was a confederate in Milgrim)
-The two participants drew lots to see who would be the ‘teacher’(T) and who would be the ‘learner’(L)
-The draw was fixed, so the genuine participant was always the teacher and the confederate the learner
-An experimenter (E) was also involved, who was also a confederate and was dressed in a grey lab coat.
-One PT the confederate, was asked to learn a set of word pairs and the teacher would test his knowledge.
-They were placed in adjacent rooms and the teacher was positioned in front of a set of controls to administer electric shocks to the learner.
-The teacher was instructed to punish the learner with a shock after each incorrect he gave
-When the teacher displayed a reluctance to injure the learner, they were encouraged to continue the procedure.
What were the results of milgrims experiment?
-65% of Pt’s went up to 300volts
-100% of the PT’s went to 300 volts
-Many of the PT’s showed signs of emotional distress e.g shaking, sweating, groaning seizures.
What did milgrim conclude from his experiment?
-Under the right conditions people will commit acts of destructive obedience towards someone they have just met
-situational factors may explain destructive obedience.
What is an authoritarian personality?
-Extreme respect for authority and submission to superiors
-rigid beliefs about social hierarchies and norms
-conventional attitudes towards gender, race and status
-likely develops from harsh childhood punishment
-high expectation of obedience and perfect behaviour
What was adorno et al procedure?
-Developed a questionaire called the F scale to measure authoritarian personality
-Studied over 2000 middle class Americans
-Examined attitudes towards authority, obedience and prejudice.
e.g obedience and respect from authority are the most important virtues for children to learn.
What were Adorno et al findings?
-High f-scale scores identified with strong people, had contempt for the weak and submissiveness to authority
-Individuals held rigid views about obedience and social hierachies
-Strong correlation found between authoritarianism and prejudice.
What are the strengths of legitimacy of authority?
Research support-Milgram shows that legitimacy of authority can affect obedience. e.g when the experimenter wore a lab coat (indicating high status)obedience was 65% but dropped to 20% when a confederate in everyday clothes took over
The status and appearance of the authority figure strongly impact obedience because it conveys authority and power
Therefore, these findings support the legitimacy of authority as a valid explanation for why people obey.
What are the limitation of legitimacy of authority ?
Alternative explanations such as the authoritarian personality which may influence obedience
Individuals with AP are more likely to percieve authority figures as legitimate and adhere to social hierachies
So obedience is not soley a product of situational factors but also individual differences
What are the strengths of the agentic state as an explanation for obedience?
P-Can be supported by Milgrims research
E-• Participants in Milgram’s study asked who was responsible for the learner. When the experimenter took responsibility, participants entered an agentic state, viewing themselves as just “agents” for the authority figure.
E-The 35% who didn’t continue expressed views of feeling responsible for the learner and that they didn’t want to breach their morals,indicating that they remained in an autonomous state;explaining their disobedience
E-Furthermore,change in location led to a drop in obedience rates (65% to 47.5%), indicating that contextual factors affect entry into the agentic state.
L-• The theory accounts for different obedience rates shown in Milgram’s variations and highlights how situational factors influence obedience.
What are the limitations of the agentic state as an explanation for obedience?
P-Based on cognitive processes (agentic and autonomous state and the agentic shift) which cannot be directly observed
E-Cannot objectively test whether someone who is obeying had entered an agentic state
L-Therefore, not possible to scientifically validate this explanation of obedience,meaning it remains a highly theoretical explanation.
P-Cannot account for individual differences in (dis) obedience
E-original study all participants were exposed to the same experimenter and therefore all participants should have continued on the shock generator
E-However,35% demonstrated disobedience and stopped before the full 450v
