obedience: situational explanations (legitimacy of authority)

Question 1

how are most societies structured?

Answer 1

• in a hierarchical way
• people in certain positions hold authority over the rest of us (eg. parents, teachers)

Question 2

how is the authority they yield legitimate?

Answer 2

• it is agreed by society
• most of us accept that authority figures have to be allowed to exercise social power over others because this allows society to function smoothly

Question 3

what is one of the consequences of the legitimacy of authority?

Answer 3

• some people are granted the power to punish others
• we generally agree that (eg. police and courts) have the power to punish wrongdoers
• we are willing to give up some of our independence and to hand control of our behaviour over to people we trust to exercise their authority appropriately

Question 4

how do we learn acceptance of legitimate authority?

Answer 4

• from childhood
• from parents initially
• and then teachers and adults generally

Question 5

what is one of the problems of legitimate authority?

Answer 5

• when legitimate authority becomes destructive
• history has too often shown that charismatic and powerful leaders (eg. hitler, stalin) can use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes, ordering people to behave in ways that are cruel and dangerous

Question 6

how is destructive authority obvious in milgram’s study?

Answer 6

when the experimenter used prods to order participants to behave in ways that went against their consciences

Question 7

evaluation of loa: explains cultural differences

Answer 7

• many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people are obedient to authority
• kilham and mann (1974) found that 16% of australian women went up to 450 volts in a milgram-style study
• david mantell (1971) found that 85% of german participants went up to the maximum voltage
• this shows that, in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals
• this reflects the ways that different societies are structured and how children are raised to perceive authority figures

Question 8

evaluation of loa: cannot explain all instances of disobedience

Answer 8

• rank and jacobson’s study (1977) with nurses
• most of them were disobedient despite working in a rigidly hierarchical authority structure
• a significant minority of milgram’s pps disobeyed despite recognising the experimenter’s scientific authority
• this suggests that some people may just be more or less obedient than others
• it is possible that innate tendencies to obey or disobey have a greater influence on behaviour than the legitimacy of the authority figure

Question 9

evaluation of loa: real-world crimes of obedience

Answer 9

• herbert kelman and lee hamilton (1989) argued that a real-world crime of obedience (my lai massacre) can be understood in terms of the power hierarchy of the US army
• commanding officers operate within a clearer legitimate hierarchy than the hospital doctors in rank and jacobson’s study and have a greater power to punish