Obedience to an authority figure

Question 1

Obedience to an authority figure

Answer 1

1. Obedience refers to following the orders of an authority figure
2. This authority figure is typically defined by status, role, and/or the ability to use sanctions
3. Anybody from a parent, police officer, to a peer with a greater status can be an authority figure
4. Social order is maintained by complying with orders and being obedient such as wearing school uniform or stopping at a red traffic light

Question 2

Blind obedience

Answer 2

1. Some obedience can be considered bad because it may harm another person
2. Blind obedience is when we comply with the orders of an authority figure without question
3. This may be harmful because we fail to reflect on whether our actions are appropriate and fail to take responsibility for such actions
4. In the Nazi regime, many soldiers committed acts of atrocity against innocent jews where they were unquestioningly complying to the orders of their superior officers
5. It was not the main reason for the anti-semitic attitudes and the holocaust but the soldiers’ blind obedience to authority was a contributory factor

Question 3

Anti-semitic

Answer 3

negative attitudes, prejudice or discrimination against Jews

Question 4

Milgram’s electric shock experiment

Answer 4

1. in 1963, milgram staged an obedience experiment, where participants thought they were taking part in a study of memory and learning
2. The participants were invited to Yale university and introduced to another participant, Mr Wallace who was a confederate in the study
3. Participants watched as Mr Wallace was strapped to a chair and electrodes were placed on his arm to give him a shock
4. Each participant was asked to give Mr Wallace an increasingly higher level of electric shock if he failed to learn and remember word pairs that were read out to him
5. The shocks were not real, but the participant believed they were
6. Mr Wallace was in a different room when he was given the electric shocks so the participant could not see him, but they could hear him protest at being shocked through a speaker
7. You might expect that the participant would stop shocking Mr Wallace when he began to shout out
8. However an experimenter, Mr Williams was in the same room as the participant and gave them instructions to continue

Question 5

Situational factors affecting obedience to an authority figure

Answer 5

1. Proximity of the victim
2. Proximity of the authority figure
3. Authority Figure
4. Legitimacy of the context
5. Personal Responsibility
6. Support of others

Question 6

Proximity of the victim

Answer 6

1. If the victim is closer to the participant or in the same room it would make them less likely to comply to hurt them
2. In Milgram’s experiment, Mr Wallace was in a different room so it was easier for participants to obey the order to continue with the shock because the effects could not be seen but only heard
3. In a variation of the experiment, Mr Wallace was in the same room as the participant and the obedience fell to only 40%

Question 7

Proximity of the authority figure

Answer 7

1. If the authority figure is closer, the participant is more likely to comply to hurting somebody or doing something they would not normally do
2. In Milgram’s experiment, when Mr williams was in the same room, 65% gave the highest level of shock while when the instructions were given through a phone, the obedience level fell to 20.5%

Question 8

Authority figure

Answer 8

1. if the authority figure looks more official, legitimate or serious, people are more likely to be obedient
2. Mr williams gave orders wearing a lab coat so he looked official and legitimate, however when he was replaced by an ordinary member of the public, obedience fell to only 20%

Question 9

Legitimacy of the context

Answer 9

1. If the context, place, and situation is more legitimate and serious, a person is more likely to comply
2. Milgram’s original experiment was conducted in Yale University, which is prestigious, when the study was replicated in a rundown office block, obedience fell to 47.5% because the prestige and legitimacy of the context was lowered

Question 10

Personal respomsibility

Answer 10

1. if a person will feel more personally responsible, they are less likely to be obedience and hurt someone
2. In milgram’s experiment, when the participant was instructed to work with another person who gave the shock rather than them giving the shock themselves, obedience rose to over 90%
3. They took less personal responsibility for shocking Mr Wallace as they did not have to press the switch themselves so they were more inclined to continue to follow orders

Question 11

Support of others

Answer 11

1. Similarly, to bystander behaviour and conformity, we tend to be influenced by the behaviour of others
2. In Milgram’s experiment, when 2 participant confederates were placed alongside the genuine participant and who refused to shock him passed 150 and 210 volts respectively, the person felt social support as there was a higher disobedience and
3. In this situations, only 10% of participants continued to be obedient till 450 volts

Question 12

Other factors that influence obedience in Milgram’s experiment

Answer 12

1. Participants were told that the shocks were painful but not harmful, so they may have felt that the damage they were causing was not long-term
2. Participants were part of an important study and had volunteered to take part which led to a sense of obligation to continue with the shocks for the sake of the study
3. Participants were paid to take part so this would increase their feeling of obligation
4. The participants had not taken part in psychological research before, so would have little understanding of the procedures involved and their right to withdraw from the study. This places them in an ambiguous situation, leading to greater compliance with the study
5. Generally, when a person starts something, they feel obliged to see it through to the end, this is known as momentum of compliance.

Question 13

momentum of compliance

Answer 13

when we start something we feel compelled to finish it

Question 14

Personality factors affecting obedience

Answer 14

1. locus of control

2. authoritarian personality

Question 15

Locus of control (obedience)

Answer 15

1. some people are said to be more obedient than others because of their type of personality
2. someone with an external locus of control is more likely to follow orders because they are affected by what other people tell them and take less personal responsibility for their own actions

Question 16

Authoritarian personality

Answer 16

1. a type of personality that is respectful of authority, right0-wing in attitude and rigid in beliefs
2. they are respectful of authority so are more likely to follow orders
3. Authoritarian personality came from research by Adorno in 1950 that was made in an attempt to explain the level of anti-semitism and racism demonstrated by the Nazis during the second world war
4. He believed that some people were more inclined to hold anti-Semitic attitudes if they had a respect for authority figure, rigid beliefs and attitudes, a strong belief in justice, right-wing politics, and aggressive to those inferior to themselves
5. Adorno developed a questionnaire called the F-scale to test whether someone had an authoritarian personality
6. Milgram used this questionnaire in obedience to understand whether the obedient participants had an authoritarian personality compared to those disobedient participants.
7. There were 40 participants tested using the F-scale and the 20 obedient participants scored higher F-scale scores than the 20 disobedient participants
8. Milgram concluded that the level of obedience from different participants could have been caused by their personalities

Question 17

F-scale

Answer 17

a questionnaire designed to identify authoritarian personalities or traits

Question 18

Agentic state

Answer 18

Agentic state is when people allow others to dictate the actions and then pass off the responsibility of their actions and the consequences to the person who gave them the order. They become soldiers and agents of another person’s agenda.

Question 19

Agency theory

Answer 19

The agency theory says that people will obey an authority figure when they believe that the authority will take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.