Obedience Flashcards
Obedience
- occurs within a hierarchy
- emphasis on power
- adopted behaviour may differ from authority figure
- prescription for action is explicit
- participant embrace obedience to explain behaviour
Conformity
- Between people of equal status
- emphasis on acceptance
- behaviour adopted is similar to group
- group pressure is implicit (unspoken)
- participants deny conformity
Stanley Milgram- how far people go to obey instructions
40 males of different backgrounds Two rooms, one with electric chair and other with shock generator ‘Learner’ strapped to chair ‘Teacher’ tested them on word pairs Wrong answer=electric shock 15-450 volts, prompted to continue
Milgram results
All participants went to 300 volts 65% to 450 volts Weren’t actually ‘learners’ \:( - ethics - deception Ordinary people obedient to authority even when inhumane Situational factors
Situational factors- proximity
Researcher to teacher- experimenter gave orders over the phone
Obeying- 21%
Authority figure- depersonalised
Easy to obey
Teacher to learner- same room can hear learner
Obeying 40%
No longer depersonalised
Harder to obey
Sf -Location
Advertising agency in a run down block with jeans and T-shirt
Obeying- 48%
Less legitimate power with location and clothing
SF- Uniform
Experimenter called away and taken over by ‘an ordinary member of the public’ -confederate
Normal clothes and not a lab coat
Obedience - 20%
Not legitimate authority so easy to not obey
SF- Two teacher condition
Participants could instruct an assistant (confederate) to press the switches
If personal responsibility is less than obedience increases
Obedience-92.5%
Milgram agency theory
Milgram evaluation
:) - lab experiment, high control - reliability and cause and effect
:( - lack internal validity, participant may have worked it out the variations
Demand characteristics
:( - ethical issues
1) Social psychological explanations - agentic state
Act as agents of the authority figure and hand over responsibility of our actions to them
Social psychological explanations-Autonomous state
When we are responsible for our own behaviour
Social psychological explanations- Binding factors
Aspects of a situation that allow a person to ignore the damaging effect of their behaviour- reduce moral strain
Shifting responsibility to victim to help us cope
Agentic shift
Carry out orders without thinking of the consequences- believe authority figure to be responsible - more likely to obey -can cause moral strain
Agentic state evaluation- strengths
:) - Milgram study showed participants demonstrating moral strain- laughing fits abs seizures -supports Agentic state will obey in the Agentic state
:) - real life situations- Nazi war criminals not responsible as they were following orders - make people aware of dangers of ignoring feelings of moral strain
Agentic state evaluation- weaknesses
:( - other possible explanations such as social power French and Raven 5 types of power: legitimate power,reward power,coercive power,expert power, referent power - if Milgram held these powers his conclusions may be limited/inaccurate
2) legitimate authority
Milgrams experiment - lab coat symbol of legitimate power and experience
Legitimate authority figure - police security etc
Legitimate authority evaluation strengths
:)- research evidence- Tarnow study of aviation accidents-excessive dependence on the captain’s authority and expertise even if it was risky
:)- real life obedience- Kelman and Hamilton MY Lai massacre is explained by power hierarchy of the US army- soldiers assumed orders given by hierarchy are legal- give reasons why destructive obedience
Legitimacy of authority evaluation- weakness
:(- other explanations may be more effective in explaining why people obey eg- gradual commitment suggests once people obey to small requests they find it more difficult to refuse escalating requests- so not the only reason
:(- may be used to justify harming others - when directed by authority to engage immoral actions people are willing to do them - no longer feel their own moral values are relevant and may excuse harmful actions
Dispositional factors- authoritarian personality
Adorno et al- prejudice but s the result of an individual’s personality type
Piloted questionnaire - F-scale (Fascism scale) personality traits predisposed individuals to be highly sensitive to totalitarian and anti democratic ideas- prone to be highly prejudicial
Authoritarian personality 2-
The F scale contained statements like “rules are there for people to follow and not change” agreeing=authoritarian personality
Authoritarian personality:
•Hostile to those lacking status but obedient to high status
• rigid in their opinions and beliefs
•conventional traditional values
Usually caused by a very strict upbringing- as not able to express hostility to parents so displaced on to safer targets who are weaker
Adorno study
- to understand anti-semitism of the Holocaust and if obedience is a psychological disorder
Over 2000 white middle class American males studied using F-scale - unconscious attitude towards racial groups
Participant who scored high identified with strong people and were contemptuous of weak people
Also showed excessive respect to those of higher status
Strong correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice
Elms and Milgram study
Follow up study on Milgram’s original work using participants who had previously taken part in one of Milgram’s experiments
20 obedient participants (450 volts) 20 defiant (refused to carry on)
Pp completed MMPI scale and F scale and open ended relationship questions
higher levels of authoritarianism in obedient participants than defiant
Obedient - less close relationships to fathers
Elms and Milgram evaluation
:(- social context more important than disposition (proximity and location and presence of disobedient peers)
:(- not all Pps showed features of an authoritarian personality- not all had difficult relationships with fathers
- participant differences
:(- those who are less educated are consistently more obedient than those with higher education - other factors
