Obedience - Social psychology Flashcards
What is obedience?
A type of social influence whereby someone acts in response to direct order from a perceived figure in authority
What is destructive obedience?
Destructive obedience is compliance with orders that result in negative consequences
What is autonomous and agentic state in the Agency theory?
Autonomous state is where we behave independently
Agentic state is where we carry out orders from a person we believe is an authoritative figure
What is agentic shift in the Agency theory?
The transformation from autonomous state to agentic state
What is moral strain?
Where people experience symptoms of anxiety when obeying orders to result in harm
What supports the Agency theory?
The Agency Theory is supported by the 1963 study of obedience. However, Gina Perry said participants questioned the reality of the shocks.
What are uses of the Agency theory?
It was applied in a variety of military strategies devised to ensure soldiers follow orders without question reducing moral strain
What evidence is against the Agency Theory?
Agentic shift isn’t inevitable
This is proven in a separate study with nurses who failed to obey orders of doctors for an overdose of the drug Valium
What was the aim of Milgram’s baseline study of obedience?
To understand the behaviour of Germans who followed orders to kill 10,000,000 Jews during the Holocaust
What was the procedure for Milgram’s baseline study of obedience?
-40 men were recruited, aged 20-50, Americans
-Offered £4.50 for participation
-Students would be asked a question, if they answered wrong the participant would shock the student ; the student answered questions wrong on purpose
-The more questions wrong, the higher the intensity of the shock
-Shock between 15V - 450V
-Verbal prods were used such as “Please continue”
What were the findings of Milgram’s baseline study of obedience?
-65% administrated to pull the 450V shock
-100% administrated to pull the 300V shock
-Participants were sweating, trembling and dug their fingernails into their own flesh out of anxiety
What was the evaluation of Milgram’s baseline study of obedience?
-Standardised procedure made every participant have the same experience which makes it more reliable and replicable. However, Gina Perry argues sometimes 20 prods were given.
-a weakness is that people may have only obeyed because they didn’t think the shock was real / demand characteristics
-Milgram’s findings are used in pilot training. Tarnow describes how his first officers fail to monitor and challenge errors made by the captain which could prevent 20% of all plane crashes
-The study raised ethical issues ; Perry argued some participants left the lab believing the learner was killed. This is deception.
What was the conclusion of Milgram’s baseline study of obedience?
-Ordinary Americans are obedient to legitimate authority
What was experiment 7 of Milgram’s variational studies?
Telephonic instructions
-The experimenter gave orders to the teacher over the telephone. 22.5% of participants were fully obedient.
-Participants found it easier to resist authority in this passive way
-The physical presence of the authority figure is a situational factor that increases obedience
evaluation
-A strength is that subsequent research has replicated this finding. demonstrating external validity
What was experiment 10 of Milgram’s variational studies?
Rundown office block
-The study took place in a rundown office block instead of the prestigious Yale University. 47.5% of participants were obedient.
-This shows setting is a situational factor that affects obedience
evaluation
-A strength is Milgram collected qualitative and quantitative data between participants and experimenter. Modilgilani and Rochat conducted a re-analysis in which the earlier in the procedure the participant challenged the experimenter, the more likely they were to be fully defiant. This allowed Modigilani and Rochat to gain an insight into different types of resistance and used their findings to explain “Ordinariness of goodness”
What was experiment 13 of Milgram’s variational studies?
Ordinary man gives orders
-When the person giving the order was wearing ordinary clothes, 80% of participants refused to continue. This is a situational factor of dissent
evaluation
-a weakness is that it lacks internal validity, as the experiment was almost impossible to achieve. This suggests obedience may be lower in situations where the person giving orders is completely unrelated to any authority figure or context
What does the social impact theory describe and who founded it?
-Describes how we behave within “social forcefields”. Founded by Bill Latane
What is social force in the social impact theory?
Strength - How important the person is to you
Immediacy - How recent it is
Number - How many sources and targets present during the interaction
What was the multiplication vs division of impact in the social impact theory?
Multiplication effect explains how increasing strength, immediacy and number can increase social impact
Division effect explains how social impact is reduced if strength, immediacy and number is decreased
What is the law of diminishing returns in the social impact theory?
This means adding an extra person to a group of 52 people will have less impact than adding an extra person to a group of 2 people
Evaluation of the social impact theory
Strength is that its supported by research evidence of Sedikides and Jackson 1990 conducting an experiment on a zoo, where visitors were asked not to touch railings. It was found if a confederate was dressed in zookeeper uniform, obedience would be high at 58% but when dressed casually obedience is at 35%
-Immediacy was also tested as there was 61% obedience when the zookeeper was in the same room but when in an adjacent room, obedience dropped to 7%
-x vs % impact was also tested as obedience was greater in smaller groups over large groups
-however this was a field experiment so researchers
couldn’t manipulate the number of people in each
group, reducing internal validity
Weakness is that immediacy isn’t important
-Hofling arranged for an unknown doctor to telephone 22 nurses and ask each of them to administer an overdose a drug that wasn’t on the ward list. 95% administered the drug
-this challenges social impact theory because the
source being absent should’ve reduced the effect
Used with political leaders to increase their influence by strong and persuasive style of communication with voters, aiming to reach voters by talking face-to-face and addressing smaller groups rather than crowds
What was the aim of Burgers study?
To see whether Milgram’s findings were era-bound
What were the 6 ethical guidelines to protect participants in Burger’s study?
-Burger stopped the shocks at 150V instead of 450V
-Participants were given 3 reminders of the right to withdraw
-Participants were debriefed almost immediately after the study ended
-Clinical psychologists supervised all of the trials
-Two step screening process excluded volunteers who may have a reaction
-15V test shock given instead of 45V
What were the findings of Burger’s study ?
Shows that Milgram’s findings aren’t era bound. Lack of empathy doesn’t seem to be a valid explanation for high obedience rates as both defiant and obedient participants had very similar scores
Evaluation of Burger’s study
-A strength is that none of the participants knew about Milgram’s previous studies, increasing internal validity. Anyone who took more than two psychology classes were excluded
-A weakness is that Burger’s findings aren’t representative of a wider population, reducing generalisability
- However. a recent Milgram replication by Jean Loon Beauvois is more representative of the wider population because they didn’t exclude any participants. Their results confirm what Burger found
-Alan Elms claims Burger’s research tells us little about real world obedience and thus lacks application. Stopping at 150V made the experiment lose its potency.
How do personality factors affect obedience?
Authoritarian personality
-Theodor Adorno explained high levels of obedience
-He believed a harsh style of parenting leads children to develop personality traits such as toughness, destructiveness and cynicism
-Measured using the F scale
-People who scored low on the F scale are more likely to show resistance and defy what they believe to be destructive
Internal/External Locus of Control
-Julian Rotter proposed the idea some people tend towards internal LoC so they take greater responsibility for their own actions
-External LoC is where you take less responsibility for your own actions
-People with internal LoC are more likely to show dissent and defy orders, whereas externals are more likely to be obedient. This was proven in Miller’s experiment where participants were asked to grab a live electric wire
Evaluation of personality factors affecting obedience
-Strength of authoritarian personality is research support. Elms and Milgram used the F scale with people from Milgram’s study. Obedient participants scored higher on the F scale and reported other characteristics of authoritarian personality.
-However, there isn’t a casual relationship between
childhood experience and obedience as other
factors may be involved
-A weakness of LoC is that in a task similar to Milgram’s study, participants were instructed to give painful doses of ultrasound to a female. Participants who were fully obedient didn’t differ significantly from others.
-This research can be applied to HR due to the use of personality tests as part of the recruitment process may result in more successful matching of people and jobs
How does gender affect obedience?
-Woman are more obedient than men as Sheridan and King’s participants were ordered to give shocks to a puppy. They found 100% of female participants were obedient compared with 54%
-Men are more obedient than women. Kilham and Mann replicated Milgram’s study in Australia and obedience rate was at 28%. 40% of males were obedient but 16% of females were obedient.
-Gilligan suggests decision making is based on differed principles of men and women. In men “ethics of justice” whilst in women “ethics of care”
Evaluation of gender affecting obedience
-A strength of Gilligan’s explanations is support from qualitative research. Male and female participants were both introduced about real life moral dilemmas. Overall men favoured justice and women favoured care
-A weakness is that many studies find no gender differences. Blass summarised the 9 Milgram style studies and found in all but one case there was no significant difference in levels of obedience between men and women.
How does situation affect obedience?
Legitimacy
-Reducing perceived legitimacy of an authority figure reduces obedience
Proximity
-When distance between authority figure and participant increased, obedience reduces
Behaviour of others
-Exposure to role models who are disobedient decreases obedience
Evaluation of situation affecting obedience
-Strength is there is a lot of evidence to show situation affects obedience. For example, Meeus and Raajmakers asked their participants to deliver unkind insults to a confederate. More than 90% delivered insults compared with 36% when the experimenter left the room
-However in Milgram’s variations there were
individual differences
-Applied to improve compliance with countryside rules. James Grannan found if information was provided about the reasons behind rules, this increased the likelihood of participants to obey
How does culture affect obedience?
Individualist cultures value personal autonomy and self reliance whereas collectivist cultures value loyalty to the group. Individualist people are more likely to be less obedient due to their independence compared to collectivist cultures where obligation and sense of duty overrides the desire to rebel
PDI refers to how accepting people are of hierarchical order
Evaluation of culture affecting obedience
-Strength of cultural explanations is a close relationship between obedience and PDI
-Weakness is that in general most nations around the world return similarly high levels of obedience. e.g. Blass calculated average obedience rate finding an overall 66% compared with 61%. These are similar averages which shows obedience is a universal social behaviour and culture doesn’t affect obedience much
