Obedience (Social Influence) Flashcards

1
Q

What is obedience?

A

When a person follows direct orders/obeys someone they feel has authority over them.

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2
Q

What are the situational variables?

A
  • Proximity of authority figure
  • Proximity of victim
  • Location
  • Uniform
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3
Q

What happens to obedience if ppt is closer to the authority figure?

A

More likely to obey.

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4
Q

What happens to obedience if ppt is closer to the victim?

A

Less likely to obey orders which harm the victim as they have to observe consequences.

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5
Q

What happens to obedience if the location carries authority?

A

More likely to obey.

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6
Q

What happens to obedience if the researchers wore uniform?

A

More likely to obey.

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7
Q

What are the explanations for obedience?

A
  • Legitimacy of authority
  • Agentic state
  • Authoritarian personality
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8
Q

What is legitimacy of authority?

A

People obey others higher up in the social hierarchy.

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9
Q

What is the consequence of legitimacy of authority?

A

Destructive authority

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10
Q

What is destructive authority?

A

Using power to punish others

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11
Q

How is destructive authority shown in Milgram’s study?

A

Experimenter used probs to order ppts to behave against their conscience.

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12
Q

Who came up with agentic state?

A

Milgram

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13
Q

What is agentic state?

A

When people obey orders of a legitimate authority figure, shifting the respnsibility of consequences of their actions away from themselves to authority figure.

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14
Q

What is an agentic shift?

A

Going from autonomous to agentic state.

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15
Q

What is an autonomous state?

A

Being free to behave according to their own principles.

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16
Q

Why do people remain in an agentic state?

A

Due to binding factotrs such as ignoring and minimising the damaging effect of their behaviour.

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17
Q

Who came up with authoritarian personality?

A

Adorno

18
Q

What is an authoritarian personality?

A

Some people being more likely to obey due to their authoritarian personality.

  • Making them overly respectful of authority.
19
Q

What was Adorno’s authoritarian personality study procedure?

A
  • Investigated causes for obedient personality.
  • More than 2000 middle class, white Americans.
  • Investigating their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups.
  • Used fascim scale (f-scale) to measure authoritarian personality.
20
Q

What were Adorno’s authoritarian personality study findings?

A
  • Scored high on F-scale = conscious of own/others status + showed respect to those of higher status.
  • Postive correlation between authoritariansim and prejudice.
21
Q

How are authoritarian personality formed?

A

Within childhood resulting from harsh parenting.

22
Q

What is scapegoating?

A

Displacing an authoritarian personality onto others who are percieved to be weaker.

23
Q

What was Milgram’s aim in his obedience study?

A

If ordinary people would obey an authority figure when orders were unjust.

24
Q

What were Milgram’s procedure in his obedience study?

A
  • Lab study.
  • 40 male volunteers.
  • Told they were ppts in a learning + memory study (actually about obedience).
  • Introduced a confederate (believed was another ppt).
    -Ppts assinged role of teacher and to give the learner (confederate) an electric shock, increasing in strength to wrong answer.
  • Reseacher encouraged teacher to go on dispite screams.
25
Q

What were Milgram’s findings in his obedience study?

A

65% = administred max shock (450v)
100% = administred at least 300v

26
Q

What is a strength of Milgram’s study?

A

Relied on lab studies allowing control over extrenous variables, establishing a cause and effect relationship.

27
Q

What are the limitations of Milgram’s study?

A
  • Demand characteristics: ppts might have realised the shocks weren’t real.
  • Lack ecological validity: different situation to everyday life.
  • May not be generalisable: all white, male, American.
  • Unethical: they were decived and couldn’t give informed consent + may of caused psychological harm.
28
Q

How does Milgram’s study support legitimacy of authority?

A
  • Uniform = obeyed if researchers wore lab coats.
  • Location: obeyed in location of a uni
29
Q

How does Milgram’s study limitate legitimacy of authority?

A

Ignores individual variables such as personality.

30
Q

How does Milgram’s study support agentic state?

A
  • Moral strain: ppts experianced stress when following orders.
  • Ignoring consequnces: obedience increased when reseacher took responsibility + when ppts were further away from the victim.
31
Q

How does Milgram’s study support authoritarian theory?

A

Some people are more likely to obey than others.
- Obedience correlated with ppts score on F-scale.

32
Q

How does Milgram’s study limitate authoritarian theory?

A

Correlation + causation: just because authoritarian personality correlates with obedience doesn’t mean it caused it.

33
Q

What is involved in the resistance to social influence

A
  • Social support
  • Locus of control
34
Q

What is social support?

A

People are more likely to resist social influence if they are supported.

35
Q

How does Asch’s and Milgram’s findings support social support?

A

When one confederate disobyed resistance was greater.

36
Q

What is locus of control?

A

When someone thinks have control over their life.

37
Q

How does Rotter support LOC?

A
  • Measured using a questionnaire.
  • If someone thinks they have control over events in their life (internal LOC).
  • If someone thinks they don’t have control (external LOC).

Internal = more likely to resist social influence.

38
Q

Whose study supports the effect of LOC on resistance to social influence?

A

Shute

39
Q

What was Shute study?

A
  • Ppts did rotter questionaire then measures how much their attitudes could be influeced by other people.
40
Q

What were Shute’s findings?

A

People with internal LOC conform less in situations that produce NSI.