Obedience: Situational Variables

Question 1

What are situational variables?

Answer 1

Features of the physical & social environment which may influence a persons behaviour.

(such as proximity, location & uniform)

Question 2

What was Milgram’s reason for carrying out situational variables?

Answer 2

• After Milgram conducted his first study on obedience, he carried out a large number of variations in order to consider the situational variables that may lead to more or less obedience

Question 3

What are dispositional variables?

Answer 3

Where behaviour is explained in terms of personality
e.g. authoritarian personality

(The alternative)

Question 4

What are the situational variables that may lead to less or more obedience?

Answer 4

• Proximity
• Location
• Uniform

Question 5

What happened in Milgram’s proximity study?

Answer 5

In Milgrams baseline study, the teacher could hear the learner but not see him.

In the proximity variation, teacher & learner were in the same room, obedience rate dropped from 65% to 40%

In the touch proximity variation, the teacher had to force the learners hand onto an electroshock plate if he refused to place it there himself after giving a wrong answer. Obedience dropped further to 30%

Question 6

What is the explanation for proximity and obedience?

Answer 6

Decreased proximity allows people to psychologically distance themselves from the consequences of their actions

for example: when teacher & learner were physically seperated (as in baseline study), teacher was less aware of harm they were causing to anothe person, so they were more obedient

Question 7

What happend when Milgram included location as a dispositional factor?

Answer 7

Milgram conducted a variation in a run-down office block rather than in Yale university (setting of the baseline study)

In this different location obedience fell to 47.5%

Question 8

What is the explanation as to why in a different location obedience fell to 47.5%?

Answer 8

The prestigous uni environment gave Milgram’s study legitimacy & authority
Ppts were more obedient in this location because they percieved that the experimenter shared this legitimacy & that obedience was expected.

However obedience still quite high in office block as the ppts percieved the ‘scientific’ nature of the procedure

Question 9

What happened when Milgram included uniform as a dispositional factor?

Answer 9

In baseline study, experimenter wore grey lab coat as symbol of his authority
In one variation- Experimenter was called away because of an inconvenient phone call at start of procedure

The role of experimenter was taken over by an ‘ordinary member of the public’ in everday clothes rather than a lab coat

Obedience rate dropped to 20% (lowest in all variations)

Question 10

Give an explanation as to why uniforms are important dispositional factors?

Answer 10

Uniforms ‘encourage’ obedience as they are widely recongised symbols of authority.

We accept that someone in a uniform is entitled to expect obedience because their authority is legitimate

Question 11

Give one strength of situational variables on obedience

Answer 11

OS: Other studies have demonstrated the influence of situational variables on obedience.

• In a field exp in NYC Bickman had 3 confederates dress in different outfits- Jacket & tie, milkmans outfit & a security guards uniform
• Confederates individually stood in the street & asked passers-by to perform tasks such as picking up litter or handing over a coin for parking meter
• People were twice as likely to obey assistant dressed as security guard than one dressed in jacket & tie

Supports view that SV such as uniform has powerful effect on obedience

Question 12

Give another strength of situational variables (Milgram’s research)

Answer 12

• His findings have been replicated in other cultures.
  Researchers used a more realistic procedure than Milgram’s to study obedience.

Ppts were ordered to say stressful things in an interview to someone (a confederate) desperate for a job.
90% of ppts obeyed.
Researchers also replicated Milgram’s findings concerning proximity:
When person giving the orders was not present, obedience decreased dramatically

Question 13

Give one limitation of Milgrams research of situational variables.

Answer 13

Low internal validity-Ppts may have been aware procdure was faked.
Holland & Orne pointed out its even more likely in his variations because of extra manipulation of variables

e.g. variation where experimenter is replaced by member of the public (situation so contrived)

Therefore in all of Milgram’s studies it is unclear whether findings are genuinely due to operation of obeidence or because ppts saw through the deception & just ‘play acted’