Factors affecting obedience - situational and cultural factors (SP)

Question 1

A01 - situational factors explain

Answer 1

physical, immediate and social evironment that affets ones behaviour

Question 2

Evaluate the strength of situational factors (with supportive evidence)

Answer 2

I - Milgram’s variations on legitimacy of environment and proximity.
J - Milgrams telephonic and rundown office block experiment, environment + proximity impact on obedience. Telephonic experiment, the experimenter gave P instructions from phone then being physically present. Only 22.5% of participants went to full 450V. Rundown office block experiment, not set in Yale university experiment was one in a rundown office building. obedience dropped to 48% compared to 65% in Yale.
E - Therefore, shows changing immediate, physical + social envi affect level which people willing obey authority

Question 3

weakness of situational factors

Answer 3

• situation does not explain for full variance in results.
• if moving to less legitimate location means people do not obey, why did some people in Milgram’s variation still obey,
• decreasing validity and usefulness of his results

Question 4

A01 - PDI explain

Answer 4

measures how much inequality people in a culture accept. High PDI cultures (e.g., Malaysia) accept authority easily → higher obedience, whereas low PDI cultures (e.g., Austria) challenge authority → lower obedience.

Question 5

Evaluate the strength of power distance index (with supportive evidence)

Answer 5

I - Cultural dimensions do correlate with obedience. close relationship between obedience and PDI
J - Kilham and man (1974) 28% obedience Australia PDI low (36%), Dolinski et al (2017) Poland 90% obedience, PDI score of 68%.
E - This suggests that Hofstede’s power distance dimension is useful in predicting obedience.

Question 6

Evaluate the weakness of power distance index

Answer 6

• PDI oversimplifies cultural differences.
• Assumes everyone in a country has the same views, but there are individual differences (e.g., not all Malaysians accept authority).
• Reduces validity as it generalises whole cultures and ignores individual variation.

Question 7

A01 - cultural factors explain

Answer 7

Cultural factors influence obedience by shaping people’s values.
- Collectivist cultures (e.g., China) emphasise loyalty to the group and authority, leading to higher obedience.
- Individualist cultures (e.g., USA) promote independence and questioning authority, leading to lower obedience.

Question 8

Evaluate the strength of cultural factors

Answer 8

• cultural dimensions correlate with obedience, close relationship between obedience and PDI.
• Kilham and man (1974) 28% obedience Australia PDI low (36%), Dolinski et al (2017) Poland 90% obedience, PDI score of 68%.
• suggests that Hofstede’s power distance dimension is useful in predicting obedience.

Question 9

Evaluate the weakness of cultural factors (with contradictory evidence)

Answer 9

I - Most nations around the world show similar high levels of obedience.
J - Blass found 65.94% around the world, 60.94% USA. Countries varied in terms of collectivism and individualism levels, but average obedience levels were quite similar.
E - Therefore, conclude perhaps obedience
universal social behaviour and culture doesn’t affect it much