obedience - situational variables and explanations Flashcards
proximity (milgram’s study)
- in proximity variation, teacher and learner were in same room, obedience rate dropped from 65 to 40%
- in touch proximity variation, teacher had to force learner’s hand onto an electroshock plate when a question wasn’t answered, obedience again dropped to 30%
- in remote instruction variation, experimenter left room and gave instructions to teacher via telephone, obedience again dropped to 20.5%, participants also pretended to give shocks
explanation for proximity (milgram’s study)
- decreased proximity allows people to psychologically distance themselves from the consequences of their actions
- in the original study, teacher was less aware of harm they were causing so were more obedient to instructions
location (milgram’s study)
- variation of study was done in a run down office block rather than at yale, in this new location, obedience fell to 47.5%
explanation for location (milgram’s study)
- prestigious university setting gave study legitimacy and authority, obedience was still quite high in office block though as participants perceived scientific nature of procedure
uniform (milgram’s study)
- in original study, experimenter wore grey lab coat to symbolise authority
- in one variation he was called away by an inconvenient phone call at the start, and role was taken over by ‘ordinary member of the public’ in everyday clothes, obedience dropped to 20%
explanation for uniform (milgram’s study)
- uniforms encourage obedience, widely recognised as symbols of authority
research support - bickman
- field experiment in NYC, three confederates dressed in different outfits (jacket and tie, milkman, security guard)
- confederates asked people to perform tasks such as picking up litter or handing over a coin for the parking meter
- people were twice as likely to obey the security guard outfit compared to the jacket and tie
evaluation points - cross cultural replications
- findings have been replicated, meeus and raiijmakers used a more realistic procedure
- participants had to say stressful things in an interview to a confederate pretending to be desperate for a job
- 90% of participants obeyed
- when person giving orders wasn’t present, obedience decreased (proximity support)
- shows that findings are valid across all cultures and both genders
evaluation points - low internal validity
- participants may have been aware that the procedure was faked
- orne and holland made this criticism, even more likely in variations as there was extra manipulation of variables
- it is therefore unclear whether findings are actually due to obedience or whether participants were just play acting and saw through the deception (demand characteristics)
agentic state
- where we feel no responsibility for our behaviour because we feel ourselves to be acting for an authority figure (such as your agent), frees us from demands of consciences, allows us to obey even a destructive authority figure
autonomous state
- opposite to agentic, free to behave according to your own principles, sense of responsibility for own actions
- shift from autonomy to agency is called the agentic shift
- milgram suggested that this occurs when a person perceives someone else as an authority figure
- in social groups, when one person is in charge, others defer to the legitimate authority of this person and shift from autonomy to agency
binding factors
- milgram observed that many participants said they wanted to stop but seemed powerless to do so, remained in an agentic state, this is due to binding factors
- aspects of the situation that allow participants to ignore or minimise damaging effects of their behaviour and therefore reduce the moral strain they feel
- examples include the experimenter saying that they were responsible, told them that the shocks wouldn’t kill mr wallace, told that mr wallace also signed a consent form
legitimacy of authority
- hierarchical structure to societies, people in certain positions hold authority over us, this authority is legitimate, agreed by society
- consequence of this is that some people are granted the power to punish others, we are willing to give up some independence and to hand control of our behaviour to people we trust to exercise their authority
destructive authority
- when legitimate authority becomes destructive, problems arise
- obvious in milgram’s study, experimenter used prods to order participants to behave in ways that went against their conscience
evaluation of situational variables - positives
- very high in reliability
- standardised procedures
- able to manipulate variables easily
- high level of control
- evidence support from other studies (bickman)
evaluation of situational variables - negatives
- demand characteristics may be likely, especially with uniform and proximity (low internal validity)
research support - bickman
procedure - three confederates in different uniforms (security guard, milkman and jacket and tie), they each asked people in the street to do tasks such as picking up litter
findings - people were twice as likely to obey the confederate in the security guard uniform than the jacket and tie
support - supports uniform variation, agentic state from outfit of security guard, field experiment so high in ecological validity and in a natural setting so can generalise to real life
evaluation of situational variables - link to milgram and nazis
- increased understanding of why people can become destructive when working below authority
- based on hierarchy, soldiers told they weren’t responsible, explains why they were so obedient to destructive orders from hitler
milgram’s study as evidence for agency theory
- 100% went into agentic state because they all went up to 300 volts so would’ve obeyed at some point
- 65% stayed in agentic state because they went all the way to 450 volts, the highest level, stayed completely obedient
- 35% switched back to autonomous state because they stopped at some point and didn’t carry on all the way so didn’t stay obedient, stopped due to high levels of moral strain, took back perception of personal responsibility
- supports agentic state and shift, responsibility placed on member of authority so participants switch into agentic state and moral strain is reduced
moral strain
anxiety caused between what we are asked to do and our morals
real life application of agency theory - my lai massacre
what happened - during vietnam war, 504 civilians caused by soldiers, women gang raped, people shot down, village burned down. only one solider was found guilty (commanding officers), his excuse was that he was just following orders from people above him in the hierarchy
application - stemmed from being in agentic state, orders from commanding officers so the responsibility was placed on him rather than the actual soldiers. chain of command in place is led to destructive obedience and deindivudation
evaluation for agency theory - individual differences
- limitation is that the theory cannot explain actions of 100% of participants
- maybe not everyone is influenced by authority figures in the same way
