Individual Differences (1) Flashcards
How does Proximity affect Obedience?
The closer the authority figure, the higher the level of obedience.
How does the Status of Authority affect Obedience?
Obedience could only be established when the authority figure was perceived to be legitimate.
How does Personal Responsibility affect Obedience?
Participants would be more obedient when personal responsibility is removed, an places onto the shoulders of an authority figure.
In a variation study where ppts had to sign a contract that stated they were taking part at their own free will and relinquishing any legal responsibility from Yale university, obedience fell to 40%
What Individual Differences are looked at which affect Obedience and Dissent?
Personality
Gender
Culture
What Personality Factors affect Obedience and Dissent?
Locus of Control
Authoritarian Personality
Empathy
How does Locus of Control affect Obedience and Dissent?
Rotter’s (1966) locus of control personality theory outlines that people either have an internal or external locus of control.
Internal: Individuals believe they are responsible for their own actions, and are less influenced by others.
External: Individuals believe behaviour is largely beyond their control, but due to external factors such as fate.
People with an external locus of control are more likely to be influenced by others.
What does it mean to have an Authoritarian Personality?
These are individuals who are typically submissive to authority, but are harsh to those seen as subordinate to themselves.
What research shows that an Authoritarian Personality can affect Obedience and Dissent?
Adorno et al: Devised the F-scale (Fascism scale), a questionnaire used to detect the authoritarian personality.
Milgram + Elms: Compared the F-Scale scores for 20 obedient and defiant ppts- Obedient ppts had a higher F-scale (fascism scale), indicating an authoritarian personality type, compared to dissenters.
A 2010 study stimulating Milgram’s experiment found that those with high authoritarian scores were less likely to withdraw; maybe because they were submissive to the authority of the experimenter.
How does Empathy affect Obedience and Dissent?
It is believed that those with high empathy would be less likely to harm others.
Burger: Empathetic ppts were more likely to protest against the shocks, but this didn’t translate to low obedience levels
What Research Evidence showed NO Gender Differences in Obedience and Dissent?
1) Milgram:
Milgram used predominantly male ppts in his experiments,but he did conduct one experiment that involved 40 female teachers
Previous research indicated that females were more compliant than males, yet we traditional think of women as less aggressive.
Milgram found that females were virtually identical to males in their levels of obedience (65%), 27.5% breaking off at the 300v level; yet their rated anxiety levels was much higher than males who were obedient. This was also found in Burger’s (2009) replication
2) Blass:
Found that obedience between males + females were consistent across 9 of the 10 obedience experiments he reviewed.
What Research Evidence showed Gender Differences in Obedience and Dissent?
1) Sheridan + King:
Adapted Milgram’s exp to involve a live puppy that received genuine shocks. All 13 female ppts were much more compliant, and delivered the maximum levels of shocks, compared to men
2) Kilham + Mann:
Did a direct replication of Milgram’s exp in Australia. They found that females are far less obedient (16%) than male ppts (40%). This may have been sue to the learners and teachers being the same sex: the females may have joined together in an alliance to react again the aggressive male experimenter
It seems there is very little,is any, gender differences in obedience; despite traditional beliefs would be more compliant to authority
What are the Two types of Culture?
Individualistic Culture
Collectivistic Culture
What are Individualistic Cultures?
e.g. America + Britain
They tend to behave more independently, and resist conformity/compliance.
They are less likely to be obedient.
What are Collctivistic Cultures?
e.g. China + Israel
They tend to behave as a collective group based on interdependence; meaning cooperation + compliance is important for group stability.
They are more likely to be obedient.
What is criticism to cultural differences in obedience?
On closer inspection of the methodologies of the research studies, it seems that the variation in % of ppts who gave the full shock is more of a product of the Procedure employed, rather than cultural variation
