Obedience

Question 1

Milgram procedure

Answer 1

40 male ppts volunteers invited to Yale lab met with experimenter and other volunteer (confederates). Volunteer is told that everyone would be randomly assigned a role - volunteer always the teacher. Teacher would read a series of words and test recall shocking the learner if the got an answer wrong increasing the voltage each time they were wrong. As voltage increased, the learners screams grew louder. If teacher tried to stop experimenter would use prods.

Question 2

Milgram findings

Answer 2

All ppts went to 300 volts, 65% continued to 450 (the max)

Question 3

AO3s for Milgram

Answer 3

Deception, right to withdraw, protection from harm, lack of ecological validity/ population validity

Question 4

Milgram situational variables

Answer 4

Proximity, Location, Uniform

Question 5

Proximity - procedure/findings

Answer 5

Obedience dropped to 40% when the teacher and learner were in the same room
30% at touch proximity
20.5% on the phone

Question 6

Location - procedure/findings

Answer 6

Obedience dropped to 47.5% when done in a rundown office downtown

Question 7

Uniform - procedure/findings

Answer 7

Obedience dropped to 20% when experimenter was a member of public -no lab coat-

Question 8

Explanations for obedience

Answer 8

Agentic state and Legitimate authority

Question 9

Agentic state

Answer 9

Milgram argued people operate in one of two ways
- autonomously and choose their behaviour, OR
- enter an agentic state, carrying out orders for an authority figure so they don’t feel responsible for their actions.

Question 10

Agentic shift

Answer 10

The change from an autonomous state to an agentic state

Question 11

Agentic state (AO3)

Answer 11

+ Soldiers in Vietnam war didn’t feel responsible as they were following orders
+ 21/22 nurses followed doctors order and gave x2 the max dosage as they trusted the doctor
- We follow the law when an authority figure is not present

Question 12

Legitimate authority

Answer 12

Society is structure in a hierarchical way, people obey those with legitimate authority, giving up their independence and giving control to who they believe can exercise authority properly.

Question 13

Legitimate authority ao3
(Mandel)

Answer 13

• Cannot explain behaviour of Nazis in Poland who shot civilians without being directed to and being told they can be reassigned. They had a choice but acted autonomously out of prejudice.

Question 14

Adorno aim

Answer 14

Wanted to understand the anti-Semitism of the holocaust and also find out whether Germans had a different personality that made the more obedient to authority figures

Question 15

Adorno procedure

Answer 15

He got around 2000 m/c white Americans and created f-scale which measures authoritarian personality

Question 16

Adorno results

Answer 16

People with authoritarian personalities: showed respect to those of higher status, were driven by higher status.

Question 17

Why an AP is developed?

Answer 17

Forms in childhood because of strict disciplinary parenting
Harsh parenting leads to:
- fear of parent; respect for authority figures
- hatred of parents; release of hatred onto others

Question 18

Adorno AO3

Answer 18

• Situational factors (Milgram)
• Correlational research (no cause and effect)
  + Milgram interviews his ppts and finds obedient ones were higher on f-scale