Obedience

Question 1

Dispositional effect :situational explanation

Answer 1

Explanations that focus on the influences that stem from the environment in which an individual is found

Question 2

Dispositional affect: dispositional explanation

Answer 2

Explanation of individual behaviour caused by internal characteristics that reside within the individual’s personality

Question 3

What is an authoritarian personality???

Answer 3

A collection of traits/dispositions developed from strict/rigid parenting e.g conformist

Often causes them to be obedient and servile towards people of perceived higher authority

Question 4

Dispositional Evidence:

Answer 4

Adorno et al

Procedure:
Measured 2000 middle class white Americans and their unconscious attitudes toward racial groups.

F-scale

Findings:
People who scored highly on F-scale identified with the strong and were contemptuous of the weak (very conscious of status)

Conclusion:
These people had a cognitive style - driven by stereotypes and prejudices

Question 5

Right wing authoritarianism characteristics :

Answer 5

1. Conventionalism (adhering to social norms)
2. Authoritarian aggression (aggression towards those who don’t abide by these norms)
3. Authoritarian submission (uncritical submission to legitimate authorities)

Question 6

Evaluation of authoritarian personality theory:

Answer 6

Pros:

Milgrim and elms
- interviewed high F scale scorers
- test to see if there is between between obedience and authoritarian personality

Milgrim research shows situation has a large impact on obedience

Cons:

Not representative of the whole population (Hyman and sheatsley found AP is present in mostly uneducated people) - 3rd party variable

Political bias (f scale test tends towards an extreme right wing ideology based)
what about left wing ideology which is similarly authoritarian?????

*Extra
Greenstein - “a comedy of methodological errors”

Question 7

Obedience definition:

Answer 7

Obedience is a type of social influence which causes a reason to act in response to an order given by a person in authority. Often this person has some power to punish.

Question 8

Context of Milgrim research:

Answer 8

Nazi extermination policy (1200 Jews killed daily )

11th April = trial of Adolf eichmann (a nazi soldier) - architect of the holocaust

“I was only obeying orders”

Question 9

Milgrim Baseline study:

Answer 9

This condition tested whether people would obey orders to shock someone in a separate room. It took place at Yale University.

40 male participants (rigged to all be given teacher role) - tricked into thinking it was a memory study

Experimenter wore a gray technicians coat

Each participant was introduced to a confederate who would be the man in the other room ‘taking the shocks’
They witnessed the confederate be strapped to a fake electrocution apparatus.

Supposedly a series of questions would be answered by the ‘learner’ - if an answer was incorrect the teacher would press a button to ‘shock’ the ‘learner’ (15 - 450 V increasing as they ‘got more questions wrong’)

After each increasingly strong shock, the resultant reaction to the shock would get louder and more violent culminating is screaming and banging on the wall.

Results:
-26 participants (65%) administered 450V
- none (0%) stopped before 300V
*obvious signs of sweating and other distress

Conclusion:
Ordinary people will obey orders to hurt someone else even if I goes against their conscience

Question 10

Main Milgrim discoveries:

Answer 10

• ordinary people are astonishingly obedient when asked to do an inhumane action
• not limited to evil people
• crimes against humanity are results of situation and not disposition
• independent decisions making is suspended by presence of an authority figure (agentic shift)

Question 11

What is internal validity????

Answer 11

The degree to which the observed effect occurred due to the manipulated independent variable.

Question 12

Evaluation of Milgrim’s experiments:

Answer 12

Pros:

Realism (Sheridan and king - electric shock to puppies / similar set up [54% male delivered maximum, 100% female delivered maximum])

Supporting replications (the game of death - 80% of participants delivered maximum shock of 460V to an unconscious man)

Good external validity (Hofling et al studied nurses on a hospital ward and found obedience to unjustified demands by doctors were very high - 21/22 obedience rate)

Cons:

Lack of realism - lack of reaction from the experimenter in regard to the learner’s clear discomfort (suggests no harm was actually being done)
Low internal validity (no belief in the realism of the test- many expressed doubts about the shocks)

Many ethical concerns - mental health of teacher + deception

*extra
Social identity theory (participants identified with the science of the study) - they appealed for help with science

Question 13

Hofling et al 1966

Answer 13

Naturalistic field experiment

22 night nurses

Dr smith (stooge) phones them and asks that they would administer 20mg of the drug to mr jones (the recommended is 10mg)

Administering the drug is against the hospital rules
21/22 obeyed

1. No instructions over the phone
2. The dose was double limit on the box
3. The medicine is unauthorised

The drug was a harmless sugar pill

*Variation:
Rank and Johnson
Nurses were instructed in person to prescribe a lethal dosage of a drug in the presence of other nurses (2/18 obeyed)

Question 14

What variables have an effect on obedience rates????

Answer 14

Proximity, location, uniform, etc

Question 15

Milgrim variations: Proximity

Answer 15

• the physical proximity to the authority figure
  (…or teacher to learner)

Original study = 65%
Teacher and leaner in the same room = 40%

Teacher had to move learners hand onto the plate = 30%
Experimenter gives instructions over the phone = 20.5%

Question 16

Milgrim variations: Location

Answer 16

• this refers to the place where an order is issued
• based on the prestige or reputation of the location

Original (Yale university) = 65%
Run down office block = 47.5%

Question 17

Milgrim variations: uniform

Answer 17

• people in positions of authority often have a specific outfit that is a symbol of this
• indication that they expect obedience

Original (grey technicians coat) = 65%
Ordinary member of the public as experimenter = 20%

Question 18

Milgrim variations: other

Answer 18

Female participants 65% =
Victims screaming 62.5% -
Victims visible 40% -
Physical contact 30% - -
Experimenter phones 20.5 - -
Run down office 48% -
Confederates give shocks 96% ++
Teacher’s discretion 2.5% - - -

Question 19

Evaluation of Milgrim variations :

Answer 19

Pros

Bushman (female researcher, dressed as a police officer, business executive or as a beggar - she told civilians to give some change to a confederate at a parking meter) 72% police, 48% businessman, 52% beggar

Easily replicated - similar results in studies in other countries

Cons

Lack of internal validity - demand characteristics (please you effect)

Obedience alibi ( excuse “ I was ordered to”)

Question 20

Social psychological explanations: agentic state

Answer 20

A mental state where a person will feel no personal responsibility for their behaviour because they believe themselves to be acting for an authority figure (as their agent). This frees them from the limits of their conscience.
E.g mai lai massacre

Autonomous state : to be in an independent state of mind (free to behave according to their own principles/still have a sense of responsibility)

Agentic shift from autonomous to an agentic state (independence to agency)

Pros

Agentic state is not confined to obedience (reduction in personal control - evidence of bystander apathy)

Cons

Milgrim claimed people shift between these states - holocaust as evidence (the holocaust happened over an extended period of time makes this an unlikely explanation)

Hofling et al (nurses should have been anxious similar to that of Milgrim due to their hierarchical position- they were not) Some did not obey

Question 21

Social psychological explanations: Legitimacy of authority

Answer 21

An explanation for obedience which suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. Based on hierarchical position.

Legitimacy of authority is dictated by the persons ability to punish others, their social control/situation, a shared expectation to have a leader. (Shown by Milgrim)

Pros

Blass and Schmitt ( students who were shown a video of the Milgrim experiment blamed the experimenter rather than the teacher)

Obedience in the cockpit (second pilot is unlikely to question lead pilot) - causes accidents when decisions are not questioned

Question 22

Milgrim in other cultures:

Answer 22

Kilman and Mann
- Australia - 16%
Mantel
- Germany - 85%

Some cultures have different views on authority figures

• pro for Milgrim tests (repeatable)