Factors affecting obedience and dissent: situation and culture

Question 1

what are the three key factors of situation ?

Answer 1

1) legitimacy
2) proximity
3) behaviour of others

Question 2

what does legitimacy refer to ?

Answer 2

reducing the perceived legitimacy of the authority figure can reduce obedience - also, reducing the prestige or status of the venue also leads to reductions in obedience

Question 3

what does proximity refer to ?

Answer 3

when distance between authority figure and ppt increases, obedience is reduced

Question 4

what does the behaviours of others refer to ?

Answer 4

exposure to role models who are disobedient decreases obedience

Question 5

what was experiment 17 of milgram’s variations ?

Answer 5

there were two further teachers (confederates) who refused to carry on - obedience dropped to 10% illustrating how the presence of others may affect obedience

Question 6

what did Geert Hofstede (2011) do ?

Answer 6

identified six dimensions - this allows us to compare the cultural values of different countries - two dimensions are particularly interesting with regard to possible links to obedience

Question 7

what do individualist cultures value ?

Answer 7

personal autonomy and self-reliance

Question 8

what do collectivist cultures value ?

Answer 8

value loyalty to the group, interdependence and cooperation in pursuit of group goals

Question 9

give two examples of individualist cultures ?

Answer 9

the US and Northern Europe

Question 10

give two examples of collectivist cultures ?

Answer 10

china and Brazil

Question 11

why are individualist cultures more likely to be less obedient than collectivist cultures ?

Answer 11

they may be less obedient due to the value placed on self-determination and independence compared to those from more collectivist cultures, where obligation and sense of duty may override the desire to rebel

Question 12

what does Power distance Index (PDI) refer to ?

Answer 12

to how accepting people are of hierarchical order and inequality in society

Question 13

what occurs in high PDI cultures - Hofstede (2017)?

Answer 13

‘subordinates expect to be told what to do and the ideal boss is a benevolent autocrat’

Question 14

what is expected of high PDI cultures ?

Answer 14

high identification with the PDI values of such a culture would lead a person to be highly obedient

Question 15

what is a strength of situation factors ?

Answer 15

there is much evidence that shows how legitimacy, proximity and behaviour of others affect obedience

Question 16

what did Meeus and Raaijmakers (1995) do ?

Answer 16

asked their ppts to deliver increasingly unkind insults to a confederate who was applying for a job

Question 17

what were the findings of Meeus and Raaijmakers (1995) ?

Answer 17

more than 90% delivered all 15 insults in the baseline conditions compared with 36% when the experimenter left the room and 16% when they witnessed two rebellious stooges as in Milgram’s experiment 17

Question 18

what does Meeus and Raaijmakers (1995) suggest ?

Answer 18

suggests that it is possible to reduce obedience significantly through adjusting aspects of a situation

Question 19

what is the competing argument to the supporting evidence for the situation factors ?

Answer 19

in all milgram’s variations, there were individual difference - some people refused to continue to higher shock levels despite the situational pressures to obey

Question 20

what does the competing argument for the supporting evidence for the situation factors show ?

Answer 20

shows that personality must be a key part of any explanation

Question 21

what is a application of the situation factors ?

Answer 21

research on situational factors and obedience has been applied to improve compliance with countryside rules

Question 22

what is the problem with the countryside (application) ?

Answer 22

there is no one to enforce the rules and so some people disobey - threatening wildlife and increasing the risk of forest fires

Question 23

what did Gramann et al. (1995) find ?

Answer 23

if information was provided about the reasons behind the rules, it increased the likelihood that ppts felt they would obey

Question 24

what does the information given by Gramann et al. (1995) act as ?

Answer 24

provides immediacy, even when there is no authority figure - they also provide strength as they indicate the power that could potentially be brought to bear

Question 25

why is the application to situation factors important ?

Answer 25

it is an important application of the work on situational factors and obedience as it may help protect sites of natural beauty

Question 26

what is a strength of cultural explanations ?

Answer 26

there is a close correlation between obedience and Hofstede’s cultural dimension, PDI

Question 27

what did Kilham and Mann (1974) find ?

Answer 27

found a strikingly low level of obedience of 28% in Australia, which scores very low for power distance (36%) while a very recent replication in Poland by Doliński et al. (2017) found a very high level of obedience of 90% as one might expect in a country with a much higher power distance score of 68%

Question 28

what does the supporting evidence of cultural explanations suggest ?

Answer 28

suggest that hofstede’s power distance dimension is useful in predicting obedience

Question 29

what is a weakness of cultural explanations ?

Answer 29

in general, most nations around the world return similarly high levels of obedience

Question 30

what did Thomas Blass (2012) do ?

Answer 30

he calculated the average obedience rate for eight non-US Milgram replications

Question 31

what were the findings of Thomas Blass (2012) ?

Answer 31

found an overall percentage of 66% compared to the average of 61% in the US replications - Blass drew attention to the similar averages

Question 32

what does Blass conclude about cultural explanations, after his 2012 study ?

Answer 32

he concludes that perhaps obedience is in fact a universal social behaviour and culture, therefore, doesn’t affect obedience much

Question 33

how can cultural explanations be applied to the nature nurture debate ?

Answer 33

the studies can be helpful in assessing to what extent behaviours are seen as being caused by nature nurture - if obedience levels were high across the would, despite differing cultural norms, it would suggest that obedience is the product of genes

Question 34

why are cultural explanations useful (issues and debates) ?

Answer 34

important because understanding the origins of destructive obedience is necessary in order to determine how to prevent further atrocities