Obedience

Question 1

What is obedience?

Answer 1

A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority.

Question 2

What is a legitimate authority figure?

Answer 2

Someone who you perceive to be genuinely above you in the hierarchy.

Question 3

Milgram aim:

Answer 3

To answer the question of why a high proportion of Germans obeyed Hitler’s commands to commit mass murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. He used his baseline procedure to assess obedience.

Question 4

Milgram procedure:

Answer 4

-40 men volunteered at Yale University.
-All were 20-50 years old and had unskilled jobs. This mimicked the German population at the time.
-At the beginning, they were introduced to a confederate, who would be the learner. -The participant would always be the teacher. There was also another confederate who was the ‘experimenter’ in a white lab coat.
-The teacher could not see the learner but could hear him. The learner has to memorise a list of word pairs, and the teacher tested them. If they got one wrong, the teacher administered an electric shock, which increased in voltage every time up to a fatal 450 V.

Question 5

What are the list of prompts?

Answer 5

-If the teacher refused to shock, the experimenter had a list of prompts. 1) Please continue. 2) The experiment requires you to continue. 3)It is essential that you continue. 4) You have no other choice but to continue.

Question 6

Milgram: findings:

Answer 6

65% of participants continued to 450V and all participants continued to 300V.
There was also qualitative data. The participants were sweating, trembling and digging their fingers into their hands. Three had seizures. Showing signs of extreme tension.

Question 7

How did Milgram’s findings compared to the predicted?

Answer 7

Milgram asked psychology students to predict the results. It was predicted that 3% would reach 450V.
All the participants were debriefed and assured their behaviour was normal.

Question 8

Milgram: conclusion:

Answer 8

German people are not different and the American participants were willing to obey extreme orders.
He suspected there were other variables involved so conducted further investigations.

Question 9

Milgram strengths:

Answer 9

-Research support from a replicated study in a French documentary. 80% of participants continued to 460V and all the signs of extreme anxiety were the same. This supports Milgram’s original findings.

Question 10

Milgram limitations: demand characteristics:

Answer 10

-Milgram reported that 75% participants believed the shocks were genuine, however Holland and Orne suggested the participants behaved as they did because they did not believe it was a genuine situation. Participants could have been responding to demand characteristics and the obedience was not legitimate.

Question 11

Milgram limitations: social identity theory.

Answer 11

-Every participant that received the fourth command, disobeyed. This aligns with the social identity theory, where participants will obey when they identify with the scientific experiment. When they were ordered simply to obey the authority figure, they refused. So SIT may provide a more valid explanation for obedience.

Question 12

Milgram limitations: ethical issues.

Answer 12

-Ethical issues- participants were deceived and put through severe mental distress. Milgram handled this with a debrief.

Question 13

What are situational variables?

Answer 13

features of the immediate physical and social environment which may influence a person’s behaviour.

Question 14

Proximity procedure and results:

Answer 14

n this version, the teacher and learner were in the same room. Dropped to 40%.
In the touch proximity version, where the teacher had to force the learner’s hand onto an electroshock plate, the fully obedient dropped to 30%
When the experimenter gave orders over the phone, dropped to 20.5%

Question 15

Proximity explanation:

Answer 15

Decreased proximity allows participants to psychologically distance themselves from the consequences of their actions, because they are less aware of the harm they are causing.

Question 16

Location procedure and results:

Answer 16

The original study was at the prestigious Yale University, but this version took place in a run down office block.
Fully obedient dropped to 47.5%.

Question 17

Location explanation:

Answer 17

The prestigious setting gave legitimacy and authority to the experiment so participants believed obedience was expected. However the figure still remained high because of the recognisable scientific nature of the study.

Question 18

Uniform procedure and results:

Answer 18

The experimenter in a lab coat was replaced with a member of the public in normal clothing.
20% rate, lowest of all variations.

Question 19

Uniform explanation:

Answer 19

Uniforms are widely recognised symbols of authority so encourage obedience. The authority is legitimate and we expect that they have the right to ask for obedience.

Question 20

Strengths of SV: Bickman 1974:

Answer 20

had three confederates dressed in three different outfits: jacket and tie, security guard uniform and a milkman’s outfit. They stood out on the street and asked passers by to perform tasks. People were twice as likely to obey the security guard than the one in a jacket and tie.

Question 21

Strengths of SV: replication in cultures:

Answer 21

Meeus and Raaijmakers 1986 ordered participants to say stressful things in an interview to someone who was desperate for a job. 90% obeyed. When the person giving the orders was not present, obedience decreased dramatically. HOWEVER it is argued that this is not very cross cultural as only two non Western variations are conducted.

Question 22

Limitations of SV: demand characteristics:

Answer 22

they were more likely in the variations, because they were so contrived, some may have worked out the truth. Therefore it is unclear whether the findings are genuine, as they may have seen through the deception. So low internal validity.

Question 23

Limitations of SV: excuse for behaviour:

Answer 23

This explanation of obedience is criticised as it offers an excuse for evil behaviour, as it ignores dispositional factors. Mandel argued it was offensive to Holocaust survivors to suggest the Nazis were obeying orders.

Question 24

What is a dispositional factors?

Answer 24

An explanation that highlights the importance of an individual’s personality. Adorno argued that a high level of obedience was equivalent to a psychological disorder.

Question 25

What is an authoritarian personality?

Answer 25

Personalities that show extreme respect and submissiveness to authority. Tend to be submissive to superiors and dismissive to inferiors.

Question 26

Characteristics of an authoritarian personality?

Answer 26

-Submissive to authority.
-Inflexible outlook on the world, everything is either right or wrong.
-Uncomfortable with uncertainty.
-Believe in strong powerful leaders to enforce love of country or religion.
-Usually traditional values, causing increased prejudice.

Question 27

Causes of an authoritarian personality?

Answer 27

-Conditional love and strict parenting/discipline.
-Experience of impossibly high standards and severe criticism of failings.
-Adorno argued that these create resentment in a child, which they cannot take out on their parents for fear of punishment, so it is displaced onto those perceived to be weaker.

Question 28

Adorno’s procedure:

Answer 28

2000 White American individuals and their unconscious thoughts towards other races.
Used many measuring scales, including the F-scale, which measures facism which is thought to be the essence of an authoritarian personality.
Examples from the F-scale. “Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues for children to learn.

Question 29

Adorno’s findings:

Answer 29

People who scored high on the F-scale typically identified with strong people and were contemptuous of the weak. They were conscious of their own status and showed extreme respect to those of a higher status.
Authoritarian people had a cognitive style, by having fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other people.
Strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.

Question 30

Strengths of DF: Milgram and Elms:

Answer 30

Milgram and Elms interviewed a sample of those who had been fully obedient in the experiment. They all completed the F-scale and it was found that they scored significantly higher than a sample of 20 disobedient participants, suggesting they had authoritarian personalities. However these results are correlational, and this group of people did not have some of the usual characteristics of Authoritarian personalities.

Question 31

Limitations of DF: limited explanations:

Answer 31

Limited explanation which cannot explain why millions in Nazi Germany, with lots of types of personalities, obeyed. Therefore there must be alternative explanations.

Question 32

Limitations of DF: Political bias:

Answer 32

Limited explanation which cannot explain why millions in Nazi Germany, with lots of types of personalities, obeyed. Therefore there must be alternative explanations.

Question 33

Limitations of DF: methodology:

Answer 33

the F-scale is criticised because every question is worded in the same direction, so can lead to acquiescer bias. Low internal validity. Jackson and Messick 1961 found a positive correlation between results of the original and a reversed version, which should have been negative.

Question 34

What are the two elements of psychosocial explanation?

Answer 34

agentic state and legitimacy of authority.

Question 35

What is the agentic state?

Answer 35

=A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure. They are an ‘agent’ which allows people to obey even destructive authority.
-Agents can feel high anxiety and realise wrongdoings but feel that they have no power to disobey.

Question 36

What is the autonomous state?

Answer 36

the opposite of agentic. A person is free to behave according to their own principles and feels a sense of responsibility for their own actions.

Question 37

What is the agentic shift?

Answer 37

The agentic shift means shifting from autonomous to the agentic state, which Milgram suggested occurs when a person perceives an authority figure with a social group.

Question 38

What are binding factors?

Answer 38

aspects of a situation that allow a person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of behaviour and therefore reduce moral strain. This allows someone to remain in an agentic state.

Question 39

Strengths of PE: Milgram:

Answer 39

Milgram’s studies support the theory. Some participants asked the experiment who was responsible for the harm. When the experimenter told them that he was responsible, not the participant, they carried on with no further objections.

Question 40

Limitations of PE: limited explanation of obedience:

Answer 40

Doesn’t explain many research findings about obedience. When 16 out 18 nurses disobeyed orders to give a too high dosage to patients, they did so autonomously. (Rank and Jacobson). Even though the doctor was an authority figure, they were ultimately responsible

Question 41

Limitations of PE: legal system:

Answer 41

Legal system favours the autonomous approach that you are ultimately responsible.

Question 42

What is legitimacy of authority?

Answer 42

=suggests we are more likely to obey someone if we perceive an authority figure which is justified by their position in a social hierarchy. So we expect that they have the power to exercise social powers over others.
-Often requires an institution, because hierarchies naturally exist.

Question 43

What is destructive authority?

Answer 43

Destructive authority= Can use legitimate powers to behave destructively, by ordering people to behave in cruel and dangerous ways.

Question 44

Strengths of PE cultural differences:

Answer 44

Cultural differences- in some cultures authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate than others, which is reflected in the results of other Milgram-like studies. 16% fully obedient in Australia and 85% in Germany.

Question 45

Limitations of PE limited explanation:

Answer 45

Can’t explain all disobedience. The nurses in Rank and Jacobsons disobeyed, even though they worked in a fixed hierarchical institution. This suggests an alternative explanation (dispositional).