Obedience - Explanations Of Obedience

Question 1

What are the 2 explanations for obedience?

Answer 1

Agentic state
Legitimacy of Authority

Question 2

What is Agentic state?

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

What is legitimacy of authority?

Answer 3

More likely to obey people we perceive as having authority over us
Justified by the individuals position of power within a social hierarchy

Question 4

What is opposite to Agentic state?

Answer 4

Autonomous state: individual seen as having personal responsibility for their actions

Question 5

Evaluation for Agentic state explanation for obedience:
Strength
Limitation

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Evaluation for Agentic state explanation for obedience:
Strength

Answer 6

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.

Question 7

Evaluation for Agentic state explanation for obedience:
Limitation

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Evaluation of legitimacy of authority and agentic state as an explanation for obedience
Strength

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Evaluation of legitimacy of authority and agentic state as an explanation for obedience
Limitation

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

Legitimacy of authority
Authority figures gain power through:

Answer 10

Legitimacy of setting
Legitimacy of the system
Uniform (visual symbol)

Question 11

What is the dispositional explanation for obedience?

Answer 11

Authoritarian Personality

Question 12

Who studied the Authoritarian personality?

Answer 12

ADORNO ET AL

Question 13

How did ADORNO study the authoritarian personality?
1
2
3

Answer 13

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

Question 14

What is the Authortarian personality?
1
2
3
4

Answer 14

A type of personality where someone is obedient to authority,
Has rigid beliefs
Is intolerant to ambiguity
And hostile to out groups

Question 15

Who was most prone to have an authoritarian personality?
1
2
3

Answer 15

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

Question 16

How is the authoritarian personality identified?

Answer 16

F scale

Question 17

Adorno’s Research (6 marks)
Aim:
Method:
Sample:
Procedure:
Finding
1
2
3

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

Evaluation of authoritarian personality
Strength
Limitation

Answer 18

Strength: research evidence Milgram F scale

Limitation: Milgram original study
research suggest situational> dispositional

Question 19

Evaluation of authoritarian personality
Strength

research evidence: Milgram looked at 450s

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Evaluation of authoritarian personality
Limitation research SV> DP

Answer 20

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.