gender affecting obedience

Question 1

Moral reasoning - P1, A01

Answer 1

Gilligan claimed that men and women are guided by different principles and this is what affects levels of obedience between males and females.
Ethic of justice is more common in males because they value equality and fairness whereas females are more likely to have the ethic of care because it emphasises interpersonal relationships and supporting those in need.
It was suggested that males may be more obedient due to their feelings of obligation to an authority figure, but females may be less obedient due to the desire to support the person being harmed.

Question 2

Strength of oral reasoning - P1, A03

Answer 2

One strength of using Gilligan’s explanation is that there is support from qualitative research.
Gilligan and Attanucci found in 1988 that males and females both used ethics in real life dilemmas. However, men were found to have overall favoured a justice orientation and women favoured a care orientation.
Therefore, this means that there may be gender differences in obedience levels due to what each gender believes is morally more important, but not necessarily due to them being less obedient and resistant to obedience.

Question 3

Women more obedient than men - P2, A01

Answer 3

Research into gender and obedience show mixed findings.
Sheridan and King found that 100% of female participants were fully obedient when asked to administer shocks to a puppy, compared to 54% of males.
The females showed distress during this study.
This meant that Sheridan and King claimed that women were more obedient than men.

Question 4

Weakness of Women more obedient than men - P2, A03

Answer 4

One weakness of this claim of women being more obedient than men is that there is a large amount of studies which find gender does not affect obedience levels.
Blass reported nine Milgram-stye studies with male and female participants.
Blass found no significant difference in obedience between men and women in eight out of the nine studies.
Therefore this means that the findings from these studies that there is no significant difference between obedience levels of men and women shows that gender does not affect obedience.

Question 5

Furthermore to Weakness of Women more obedient than men - P2, A03

Answer 5

Furthermore, in Burger’s study in 2009 it was also found that there was no significant difference found between obedience rates of men and women
Therefore, the findings of burgers study with only a 6% difference in obedience levels between men and women is not significant and shows that gender does not affect obedience levels

Question 6

men more obedient than women - P3, A01

Answer 6

In later years, there have been more suggestions around the idea that Men are more obedient than women.
Kilham and Mann replicated Milgram’s study in Australia in 1974. They found that there was a low rate of obedience levels. 40% for males and 16% of females were fully obedient.
The findings of this study suggest that there are higher obedience levels in males than females.

Question 7

weakness of men more obedient than women - P3, A03

Answer 7

However, the Milgram variation differed considerably from the original, the victim being a long haired young male, and the transmitter being female in the female executant condition.
This may explain why females were less obedient so may not serve as a useful conclusion about gender and obedience.