Obedience - Explanations Of Obedience Flashcards
What are the 2 explanations for obedience?
Agentic state
Legitimacy of Authority
What is Agentic state?
They believe they are acting on behalf of an authority figure and so they lose all sense of guilt and personal responsibility as they believe that the authority will take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
What is legitimacy of authority?
More likely to obey people we perceive as having authority over us
Justified by the individuals position of power within a social hierarchy
What is opposite to Agentic state?
Autonomous state: individual seen as having personal responsibility for their actions
Evaluation for Agentic state explanation for obedience:
Strength
Limitation
Strength: Milgram variation:
Remove authority: authority figure (researcher) not in same room as teacher(real participant)
Over telephone
65% to 20.5%
Limitation: Milgram original study - 35% didn’t obey
Evaluation for Agentic state explanation for obedience:
Strength
Strength: Milgram variation:
Remove authority: authority figure (researcher) not in same room as teacher(real participant)
Over telephone
65% to 20.5%
With AF in room, feel less responsible (Agentic state) when AF leaves
feel more responsible for actions (Autonomous state)
Agentic Autonomous shift.
Evaluation for Agentic state explanation for obedience:
Limitation
35% didn’t obey in original study/ didn’t go to maximum voltage 450
SO DOWN TO INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES SO DISPOSITIONAL FACTORS RATHER THAN EXTERNAL
Agentic state presumes all would obey as they feel less personal responsibility
but not the case for everyone
Evaluation of legitimacy of authority and agentic state as an explanation for obedience
Strength
Milgram variation:
AF Lab coat: 65%
AF member of public: 20%
(Uniform is a symbol of legitimacy of authority) affects obedience
Prestigious Yale to Run down office: 65% to 47.5%
(Setting a symbol of legitimacy of authority) affects obedience
Evaluation of legitimacy of authority and agentic state as an explanation for obedience
Limitation
Dispositional factors - Authoritarian personality. This argues that obedience is down to the individuals personality ie strict parenting and so would suggest that there are several explanations for obedience, not just down to external factors.
Legitimacy of authority
Authority figures gain power through:
Legitimacy of setting
Legitimacy of the system
Uniform (visual symbol)
What is the dispositional explanation for obedience?
Authoritarian Personality
Who studied the Authoritarian personality?
ADORNO ET AL
How did ADORNO study the authoritarian personality?
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Interviewed ps about early childhood
Showed ps K-blots to find out about hidden thoughts
Developed the Fascism scale to measure how authoritarian someone is
What is the Authortarian personality?
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A type of personality where someone is obedient to authority,
Has rigid beliefs
Is intolerant to ambiguity
And hostile to out groups
Who was most prone to have an authoritarian personality?
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Blind obedience shapes from childhood
Children with harsh punitive parents subject to strict disciple
Develop hostility they cannot express to parents
Displace resentment to those they see as weak
How is the authoritarian personality identified?
F scale
Adorno’s Research (6 marks)
Aim:
Method:
Sample:
Procedure:
Finding
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Aim- unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups
Method- Questionnaire
Sample- 2000 middle class Americans
Procedure- Complete an F Scale
Findings- If someone scored highly they identified with strong people and disapproved of the weak.
They were conscious of their status. Authoritarians believe that people fall into categories with fixed stereotypes.
Evaluation of authoritarian personality
Strength
Limitation
Strength: research evidence Milgram F scale
Limitation: Milgram original study
research suggest situational> dispositional
Evaluation of authoritarian personality
Strength
research evidence: Milgram looked at 450s
Milgram conducted an interview with ps that went to 450V
Found that high F scale scores amongst them
Suggests a link between obedience and authoritarian personality
Although correlation not cause
Evaluation of authoritarian personality
Limitation research SV> DP
Unlikely that all that obeyed had same upbringing and experiences of punitive harsh parents and wanted to punish the weak
Milgrams study illustrates better the power of situational variable
(Meg uniform proximity and location) on how much people obey.
Limitation as not all people who obey have the same childhood
E.g the whole country of Nazi germany.
