Obedience Flashcards
Define obedience
-complying with the demands of an authoroity figure
Define a benign authority figure
-directing someone to act in a socially acceptable way
Define a malevolent authority figure
-directing someone to act in an immoral way
Why did Milgram carry out his experiment
-to see whether Germany was a particularly highly obedient country or if all of us are capable of the same levels of obedience
What was the aim?
-to see how obedient people would be in a situation where obeying other would mean breaking their own moral code to hurt an innocent person
Give 7 key facts about the procedure
- They were deceived into thinking it was about memory and punishment
- There was an experimenter and another ‘fellow particapant’ - who was actually a confederate playing the role of the learner
- the learner couldn’t be seen and audio files were used for his responses
- shocks were given if an answer was wrong or not answered
- there were no real shocks. they supposedly went up by 15v each time and reached 450v
- verbal prods were used
Give 3 key findings
- every participant gave at least 300v
- 62.5% reached 450 volts
- most showed visible signs of distress - three had uncontrollable seizures and only some showed few, if any signs of discomfort
What did Milgram conclude
- people have a strong tendency to obey orders even when they go against their morals
- as a result - to try and identify the reasons why people are so obedient he carried out 19 different variations
Give two strengths of the study
- allowed us to understand possible reasons for the holocaust
- has a high reliability and easy to replicate
What ethical issues were raised
- deception
- protection from harm was lacking
What did Baurmind argue
that milgram showed insufficient respect - and long term psychological harm could have occurred. it also may mean participants would no longer trust psychologists or people in authority.
Why was milgram accused of not protecting his participants from harm?
- due to extreme stress and there weren’t adequate steps to protect them from psychological harm
- however only 2% said they regretted taking part in the study and many said they learnt something new about themselves
Why was Milgram accused of deception
- they could not give informed consent
- however it was necessary
Why was Milgram accused of a lack of informed consent
- lack of debriefing of over 30,000.
- he believed they could confound his results
Why was Milgram accused of not giving participants the right to withdraw
- they weren’t explicitly told
- 35% however did withdraw
What did Orne and Holland claim
-that there were demand characteristics - despite 70% saying they thought it was real
How well can Milgram’s research be applied to ecological validity
- some criticised the study for lacking it - as it was too artificial
- Hofling et al’s study however proved this wrong - when nurses in a hospital received a phone call from a doctor they didn’t know to administrate an unknown drug to a patient. 21 out of 22 obeyed.
How well can Milgram’s research be applied to population validity?
- there is gender bias so it is androcentric
- Sheridan and King found that women were more obedient than men in giving electric shocks to puppies
- there is also a culture bias
What have reseachers found in terms of cultural differences
- Spain had the highest levels with 90% obeying
- Only 28% obeyed in Austrailia
How well can Milgram’s research be applied to temporal validity
-is high because Burger replicated it and 70% obeyed and went past 150v
What is the agentic theory
-an explanation for obedience
-proposes the two different social states - autonomous to agentic
the agentic shift means people mindlessly accept authority’s demands and see themselves as no longer responsible
-used to deal with anxiety and we are conditioned to respect authority
Evaluate milgram’s theory that the agentic state caused the events during the holocaust
- it was argued that the state couldn’t last that long
- fails to explain the gradual conversion of many doctors
What is the legitimacy of authority
- increased by location and uniform and proximity - situational variables
- social heirarchy should be obeyed through this
Evaluate the legitimacy of authority in the experiment
- the participants clearly recognised the legitimacy of authority
- this was shown when obedience dropped to 47.5% when location changed
What did Tarnow find
-when reviewing serious air accidents - he found that crew had an excessive dependence of the captain. 19/37 failed to challange the errors made
what are situational variables
-external explanations of obedience
Explain proximity
- how aware the person is of their actions and consequences depending on distance
- when the teacher and learner were only 46cm apart obediance dropped to 40%
- gas chambers and their use is an example of this —> less damage psychologically
Explain location
- can increase or decrease legitimacy and therefore obedience
- (47.5% obeyed in less prestigious surroundings)
Explain uniform
- increase legitimacy
- lab coat
What did Bickman’s study show
- people were asked to either pick up rubbish, lend a coin, or move away from a bus stop
- obedience rate when auth. figure wore normal clothes -19%
- milkman - 14%
- security guard - 38%
What is a dispositional factor for obedience
authoritarian personality
Evaluate situational factors
they do not tell us about the person but personality factors can - and can also tell us why they may not have obeyed
What is the authoritarian personality
a personality type characterised by a tendency to see the world in black and white so believe strongly in obeying authority.
What is the f-scale questionnaire
a questionnaire which measures someones degree of ap
what did Adorno suggest about the personality type
that it was shaped in early childhood due to strict parenting .
often insecure and fearful of social change
Name two strengths of the theory
Elms and Milgram -found a link that those more obedient in the study had a higher f-scale
Altemeyer - found that people with ap who were told to give themselves shocks gave themselves higher shocks than those WITHOUT ap
Name two limitations of the theory
-link is correlational - much like education
(but other research has found that when this is the control variable - people who are more obedient still show signs of AP - so AP could be a better explanation anyway)
-suffers from response bias
What did Altemeyer produce to combat response bias in the f scale
- a less biased scale with an equal number of pro and anti statements
- right wing is more obedient
- supported by Begue - left wing ppts gave lower intensity shocks - supporting the role of Ap in obedience
