Factors affecting obedience and dissent: situation and culture Flashcards
what are the three key factors of situation ?
1) legitimacy
2) proximity
3) behaviour of others
what does legitimacy refer to ?
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
what does proximity refer to ?
when distance between authority figure and ppt increases, obedience is reduced
what does the behaviours of others refer to ?
exposure to role models who are disobedient decreases obedience
what was experiment 17 of milgram’s variations ?
there were two further teachers (confederates) who refused to carry on - obedience dropped to 10% illustrating how the presence of others may affect obedience
what did Geert Hofstede (2011) do ?
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
what do individualist cultures value ?
personal autonomy and self-reliance
what do collectivist cultures value ?
value loyalty to the group, interdependence and cooperation in pursuit of group goals
give two examples of individualist cultures ?
the US and Northern Europe
give two examples of collectivist cultures ?
china and Brazil
why are individualist cultures more likely to be less obedient than collectivist cultures ?
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
what does Power distance Index (PDI) refer to ?
to how accepting people are of hierarchical order and inequality in society
what occurs in high PDI cultures - Hofstede (2017)?
‘subordinates expect to be told what to do and the ideal boss is a benevolent autocrat’
what is expected of high PDI cultures ?
high identification with the PDI values of such a culture would lead a person to be highly obedient
what is a strength of situation factors ?
there is much evidence that shows how legitimacy, proximity and behaviour of others affect obedience
what did Meeus and Raaijmakers (1995) do ?
asked their ppts to deliver increasingly unkind insults to a confederate who was applying for a job
what were the findings of Meeus and Raaijmakers (1995) ?
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
what does Meeus and Raaijmakers (1995) suggest ?
suggests that it is possible to reduce obedience significantly through adjusting aspects of a situation
what is the competing argument to the supporting evidence for the situation factors ?
in all milgram’s variations, there were individual difference - some people refused to continue to higher shock levels despite the situational pressures to obey
what does the competing argument for the supporting evidence for the situation factors show ?
shows that personality must be a key part of any explanation
what is a application of the situation factors ?
research on situational factors and obedience has been applied to improve compliance with countryside rules
what is the problem with the countryside (application) ?
there is no one to enforce the rules and so some people disobey - threatening wildlife and increasing the risk of forest fires
what did Gramann et al. (1995) find ?
if information was provided about the reasons behind the rules, it increased the likelihood that ppts felt they would obey
what does the information given by Gramann et al. (1995) act as ?
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
why is the application to situation factors important ?
it is an important application of the work on situational factors and obedience as it may help protect sites of natural beauty
what is a strength of cultural explanations ?
there is a close correlation between obedience and Hofstede’s cultural dimension, PDI
what did Kilham and Mann (1974) find ?
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%
what does the supporting evidence of cultural explanations suggest ?
suggest that hofstede’s power distance dimension is useful in predicting obedience
what is a weakness of cultural explanations ?
in general, most nations around the world return similarly high levels of obedience
what did Thomas Blass (2012) do ?
he calculated the average obedience rate for eight non-US Milgram replications
what were the findings of Thomas Blass (2012) ?
found an overall percentage of 66% compared to the average of 61% in the US replications - Blass drew attention to the similar averages
what does Blass conclude about cultural explanations, after his 2012 study ?
he concludes that perhaps obedience is in fact a universal social behaviour and culture, therefore, doesn’t affect obedience much
how can cultural explanations be applied to the nature nurture debate ?
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
why are cultural explanations useful (issues and debates) ?
important because understanding the origins of destructive obedience is necessary in order to determine how to prevent further atrocities
