Obedience Flashcards
What is obedience
A form of social influence, in which an individual follows a direct order from a perceived authority figure.
Obedience -(Milgram): Aim
To investigate the power of an authority figure and to find out if ordinary people would obey the demands of a perceived authority figure.
Obedience -(Milgram): Procedure
Laboratory experiment
Yale university
volunteer sample, males aged 20-50, paid
Prticipant= learner, 2 confederates
learner gave wrong answers= fake shocks
going up in 15 volts to 450 volts
if they want to stop they were given verbal prods
Obedience -(Milgram): Findings
All participants obeyed and gave shocks up to 300,
12% stopped at 300v
65%continued to 450v
Obedience -(Milgram): Conclusion
Ordinary people will obey authority even when they know what they are doing is wrong- so it isn’t just evil people who commit crimes, but normal people obeying orders.
What are situational variables that affect obedience
Proximity
Location
Uniform
Explain proximity
The physical closeness or distance of an authority figure to the person they are giving orders to.
As investigated by Milgram: Proximity
The experimenter gave orders to the teacher via a phone in a diff room.
Rates dropped to 21% from baseline 65%
Explain location
The place or setting of the situation can affect how people obey authority.
As investigated by Milgram: Location
Milgram repeated the study in a run-down office block.
Rates dropped to 48% from baseline 65%
Explain uniform
Clothing worn by the authority figure can affect the perception a person has of them and therefore change wether they obey or not
As investigated by Milgram: Uniform
Bickman field experiment (1974)- field experiment in new york.
Uniform-82%
Normal clothes-36%
Evaluation of Milgram’s research into obedience: Internal validity
Measure of how well a study is conducted and how accurately its results reflect the studied group.
Orne and Holland criticized Milgram’s research and claimed that the participants were going along with it when they shocked the learner.
Would question the internal validity because milgram was showing how the participants were playing along with the requests rather than measuring obedience directly.
Evaluation of Milgram’s research into obedience: External validity
Low external validity.
Ecological validity is low because it was a controlled lab experiment as it was carried out at Yale so it is not possible to generalise it to real life.
Population validity was low because there was only male volunteers and they respond differently to authority than women as they are more nurturing therefore more likely to obey.
Explanations for obedience
The agentic state
Legitimacy of authority
The authoritarian personality
The agentic state
Where the individual is acting on behalf of someone else, they feel they have diminished personal responsibility and therefore don’t feel guilty about their actions.
Evaluation of agentic state
Milgram found that obedience rates reduced to 20.5 when the instruction was given over the phone.
Can be explained by agentic shift cos the teacher is acting on behalf of the experimenter and mindlessly accepts the order.
Over the phone, obedience is lower because the participant is in an autonomous state, which means that when we are an agent for someone we can diffuse the responsibility.
Legitimacy of authority
Refers to the amount of social power that is held by the person giving the orders.
May be associated with social roles or social status (eg. gang members)
Evaluation of legitimacy of authority
Experimenter wore a white lab coat which signaled status and authority to the real participants.
Obedience was high (65%) which suggests that the perceived legitimacy of the experimenter had an effect on the real participants obedience levels.
The authoritarian personality
Dispositional explanation of obedience, which suggests that an individual has a collection of traits that have evolved as their personality has developed throughout their childhood.
Obedience is due to personality not the situation.
Evaluation of dispositional explanation to obedience
Adorno et al (1950)
Developed the “f scale” found that people who scored highly identified with strong people and were hostile to the weak
Those with ATP had a cognitive lifestyle and are more likely to be obedient.
Continuation ( atp )
Milgram and elms (1966)- interviews found that those who were fully obedient scored higher on tests of authoritarian personality. Proves that ATP increases obedience.
