Factors affecting obedience: situation and culture Flashcards
What are the three situational factors affecting obedience?
Legitimacy
Proximity
Behaviour of others
If the legitimacy of the authority figure or the status of the venue is reduced, what would happen to obedience?
The levels of obedience would drop.
E.g. Milgram’s rundown office block study showed a drop in obedience.
What does increasing distance do to obedience?
The levels of obedience would drop.
E.g. Milgram’s telephonic instruction variation showed a drop in obedience.
What does Latané’s (1981) concept of immediacy refer to.
In social impact theory, immediacy refers to the closeness of the target in terms of space and time.
In Milgram’s experiment 3, the learner was in the same room as the teacher (removed the physical buffer of the wall) - obedience dropped to 40%.
How does the behaviour of others affect obedience?
Exposure to disobedient role models decreases obedience.
In Milgram’s experiment 17, there were two further teachers who refused to carry on, this created a 10% drop in obedience.
Who provided evidence to show that situational factors can affect obedience?
Meeus and Raaijmakers (1995)
They asked participants to deliver unkind insults to a confederate who was applying for a job.
More than 90% gave all 15 insults.
36% when the experimenter left the room.
16% obedience when they witnessed two rebellious teachers.
How can situational factors affecting obedience be applied to the real world?
In the countryside there is no one to enforce rules therefore some people will disobey.
Gramann et al (1995) found giving information about reasons behind rules increased the likelihood participants felt they would obey.
This is an important application of the work on situational factors and obedience, which may help protect sites of natural beauty.
What are the two factors involved in culture affecting obedience?
Individualist v collectivist cultures
Power distance index
What is an individualistic culture?
Less obedient due to value being placed on self determination and independence.
What is a collectivist culture?
More obedient - they value loyalty to the group, interdependence and cooperation in pursuit of group goals.
What does the Power Distance Index refer to?
It refers to how accepting people are of hierarchical order and inequality in society.
High PDI culture may lead to high obedience.
Low PDI culture may lead to low obedience.
Name two psychologists that provided support for the relationship between PDI and obedience.
Kilham and Mann (1974) - found a low level of obedience in Australia which scores low on PDI.
Dolinski et al (2017) - found a very high level of obedience in Poland which scores highly on the PDI.
What is a weakness of culture affecting obedience?
Blass (2012) reported that most nations show similar obedience levels which means that obedience may be a universal social behaviour and culture therefore doesn’t affect it that much.
