Obedience Flashcards
Milgram’s obedience to authority study aim
researching how far people would obey an instruction if it involved having another person be victimised to harm also how easily ordinary people could be influenced into killing someone
Milgram’s obedience to authority study procedure
male p’s from Yale University - volunteers recruited for lab experiment investigating ‘memory’ - gave p’s a mini shock - experimenter dressed in a grey lab coat played by an actor and 2 rooms used (one for learner and one for teacher + experimenter) - learner strapped to chair with electrodes and teacher told to administer a shock every time learner makes a mistake increasing the volts each time - learner gave mainly wrong answers purposefully and when teacher refused to carry on the experimenter gave a series of orders
Milgram’s obedience to authority study results
65% continued to highest level (450 volts) - all p’s continued to 300 volts - p’s because agitated and distraught
Milgram’s obedience to authority study conclusion
ordinary people are more likely to follow orders given by an authority figure even to the extent of murder
Milgram’s obedience to authority study weaknesses
-low in internal validity as they thought p’s didn’t believe that the shocks were real and Perry listened to the tapes and found many p’s expressed their doubts about the shocks - p’s showed demand characteristics and just picking up on cues
-lacks ecological validity as findings can’t be generalised beyond a lab setting however Hofling et al studied 22 nurses and 21 gave a lethal dosage to patients when they were instructed by their superiors
-androcentric and culturally biased as only studied American men so results can’t be generalised to everyone however Sheridan and King found 54% of male p’s gave all the shocks to a puppy while 100% of the women did
autonomous and agentic state and agentic shift
autonomous = where individuals act on their own behalf and take responsibility for consequences of their actions
agentic = absolve ourself of personal responsibility
agentic shift = become deindividuated and go from taking responsibility of our actions to feeling no responsibility (autonomous to agentic state)
explanations of obedience (Milgram) strengths
-research support by Blass and Schmitt who showed Milgram’s experiment to students and asked them to identify who they felt responsible and students blamed the experimenter due to legitimate authority and expert authority (scientist)
-a useful account of cultural differences e.g Kilham and Mann replicated Milgram’s study in Australia and found only 16% went to full voltage = in some cultures authority is more legitimate than others = reflects how different societies are structured = cross-cultural research so increases validity
explanations of obedience weaknesses
-agentic shift doesnt explain why some didn’t obey also doesnt explain Hoflings nurse study as it predicts they would’ve been anxious as they understood their roles in a destructive processes yet they didn’t which means agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience
situational factors affecting obedience - location
60% continued to full volts at Yale University but only 48% in a run down office - we are socialised at a young age to respect authority within an institution e.g school and a well-known institution such as Yale is prestigious so anyone connected to the school is perceived as having legitimate authority
situational factors affecting obedience - proximity
65% obedience in Milgrams study, 21% when experimenter is much further away, 40% when learner was in same room and 30% when the teacher held the learners hand down
-closer we are to visible consequences the harder it is to be obedient as we are much more aware of direct effects
situational factors affected obedience - uniform
in Milgram’s experiment the experimenter wore a lab coat indicating his status - Milgram tested uniform and got the experimenter called away and replaced by another person in ordinary clothes and the man came up with the idea to increase voltage and the obedience levels dropped from 65% to 20%
-Bickman tested this with 3 male actors, one dressed as a security guard, one dressed as a milkman and another dressed in ordinary clothes and asked members of public some instructions, guard was obeyed 76% of times, milkman on 47% and the pedestrian on 30%
=uniform gives someone a strong sense of authority and gives them power to issue sanctions
Adorno’s authoritarian personality theory
some people develop a personality which makes them more likely to be obedient - results of early childhood experiences which shape our personality
authoritarian personality = extreme respect for authority, strong belief in traditional values, rigid + dogmatic views of right and wrong, exerts dominance on those with less power
Adorno’s F-Scale method
sample of 2000 m/c white Americans developed the f-scale questionnaire to measure characteristics of authoritarian personality also interviewed p’s about their parents’ childrearing styles e.g how much they lived by rules
Adorno’s F-Scale results and conclusion
results = p’s who scored high on f-scale identified with strong people and were disapproving of weak - aware of status and brought up by strict parents with physical punishments and as children they had internalised the importance of obedience to authority
conclusion = an authoritarian personality can develop as a result of strict parenting
