Obedience (Social Influence) Flashcards
Obedience
A type of social influence which causes a person to act in response to an order given by another person
Method (Milgram 1963 Obedience to authority)
Confederate strapped to a chair and connected to a shock generator. It didn’t really give electric shocks but the participants thought it was real
The participants taught the learner word-pairs over an intercom. When the learner answered incorrectly, the participant had to administer an increasing level of shock.
Results + Conclusion (Milgram 1963 Obedience to authority)
Results:
65% administered 450V and none stopped before administering 300V.
Most participants showed obvious signs of stress like sweating, groaning and trembling but still obeyed
Conclusion: Ordinary people will obey orders from an authority figure to hurt someone else even if it means acting against their conscience.
Situational variables in Milgram’s studies (U+P)
-Location: originally done in Yale university (quite prestigious)
was changed to a run down office down town. obedience decreased due to lack of LOA
-Uniform: the researchers originally wore a grey lab coat. obedience dropped to 20% when they were not dressed like a scientists due to lack of LOA
Proximity- the distance between them caused obedience to drop due to no agentic state
Agentic state
A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure as if we are an agent for them
Legitimacy of authority
An explanation of obedience which suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have more authority over us. The persons authority is awarded by the social hierarchy
Autonomous state
Means to be independent or free to behave in accordance with their own principles. Therefore taking responsibility for their own actions
Agentic shift
A shift from a state of autonomy to the agentic state
Positive Evaluations of situational variables and Milgram’s experiment
Milgrams research concluded that agentic state and legitimacy of authority do influence obedience
Standardised procedures enabled replication. Blass found an obedience rate of 65% across 8 countries
Negative Evaluations of situational variables and Milgram’s experiment
Milgrams research had methodological flaws and lacked mundane realism and ecological validity
Criticised ethically for causing distress and being deceptive
My Lai Massacre (evidence for obedience)
-American soldiers in Vietnam killed 500 villagers
-Lt William Calley ordered them to do this
-he accepted no guilt and blamed it on his commanding officer
Adornos Arguments
High obedience of Nazi soldiers in WW2 was dispositional and due to an Authoritarian Personality
Unlike Milgram who said situational factors cause extreme obedience
Dispositional Factors
Explanation of individual behaviour caused by internal characteristics that reside within the individual’s personality(e.g. an authoritarian personality)
Situational Factors
Explanations that focus on the influence that stem from the environment in which that individual is found
Authoritarian personality
A distinct personality pattern characterised by strict adherence to conventional values and a belief in absolute obedience or submission to authority
Authoritarian Personality Characteristics
rigid beliefs → traditional values and dislike change/disorder
hostility towards other groups → dominating and bullying manner
intolerant of ambiguity
submissive attitudes towards authority figures → respectful to authority figures
Method (Adorno’s 1950 study of the authoritarian personality)
Adorno proposed that over-strict parenting results in a child being socialised to obey authority unquestioningly
The experiment asked 2000 middle class American males to complete the F scale
Results (Adorno’s 1950 study of the authoritarian personality)
Adorno proposed that those who scored higher on the F scale were more likely to have strict parents
Adorno identified a number of personality traits that have resulted from over-strict parenting as the authoritarian personality.
Conclusion (Adorno’s 1950 study of the authoritarian personality)
The authoritarian personality in a dispositional explanation for obedience, due to over-harsh and strict parenting
Positive Evaluation (Adorno’s 1950 study of the authoritarian personality)
Elms and Milgram found that participants who scored higher on the F scale had been willing to administer the bigger shocks in Milgram’s experiment.
35% resisted authority figure in Milgrams experiment - willingness to obey varies from person to person
Negative Evaluation (Adorno’s 1950 study of the authoritarian personality)
Situational explanations of obedience (agentic state and legitimacy of control) backed up by experimental design (eg Milgram)
