P1 Social Influence: Topic 6: Obedience (Situational Factors)

Question 1

When will we act as an agent for someone?

Answer 1

• When we percieve someone to be higher up the social hierarchy than us we are likely to act as an agent for them.
• These people are likely to share characteristics which highlight their social status, e.g., wearing a uniform and have a profession such as a doctor, policeman, or teacher.

Question 2

What happens when we are in the agentic state?

Answer 2

• We believe that we are not responsible for our actions, but instead following orders.
• Might feel a sense of anxiety or moral strain if what we are doing is wrong, but we are powerless to disobey as we are in a lower position in the social hierarchy.

Question 3

What is the opposite of the agentic state?

Answer 3

The autonomous state.

Question 4

What is the autonomous state?

Answer 4

Where we are independent and have free will over our actions.

Question 5

What is an agentic shift?

Answer 5

When ordered by an authority figure we make an agentic shift from the autonomous state to the agentic state.

Question 6

Why do we always stay in the agentic state even when we want to disobey?

Answer 6

Due to binding factors.

• These are factors of the situation which reduce our moral strain, such as reassuring ourselves it is not our responsibility or justifying our actions by saying that the victim ‘was asking for it’.

Question 7

How does Milgram’s study support the role of the agentic state in obedience?

Answer 7

• Many of the participants asked the experimenter ‘who is responsible if Mr Wallace is harmed?’
• When the experimenter replied ‘I am responsible’ the participants continued to give shocks with no further objections.
• Participants were okay with it as the experimenter takes responsibility so there is less of a moral strain.

Question 8

How was Rank & Jacobson’s study not in support of the role of the agentic state in obedience?

Answer 8

• They found that 16/18 nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an overdose of Valium to a patient.
• Not everyone listens to an authority figure.

Question 9

What was the Reserve Police Battalion 101?

Answer 9

Nazi paramilitary division of the uniformed police force, operating under the leadership of the SS.

• 500 men in their 30s.
• Formed mainly to guard and/or kill Polish Prisoners of war and kill Jewish people in Poland.
• Between 1939-43 they rounded up tens of thousands of Jewish people, and were estimated to have killed 83,000.

Question 10

What was once infamous specific raid from the Reserve Police Battalion 101?

Answer 10

Small Polish town.

• Shot many men, women and children, without direct orders to do so.
• They could have been assigned to other duties if they preferred.
• They chose to carry out the massacre of innocent civilians.

Question 11

How is the raid from the RPB 101 a limitation of the agentic state?

Answer 11

• Nazi’s were in autonomous state and made their own choice to do the massacre when they could have refused.
• They had full responsibility and still decided to undertake it.

Question 12

What are we taught from an early age?

Answer 12

Who is at the top of the social hierarchy.

Question 13

What do teachers, police officers and security guards all have?

Answer 13

Legitimate authority.

Question 14

What do we trust on teachers, police officers and security guards?

Answer 14

• We trust them to exert their power over us appropriately.
• We are willing to give up our independence if they do so.

Question 15

What bad actions have some authority figures done?

Answer 15

They have exploited their legitimate authority to cause destruction.

Question 16

What is destructive authority?

Answer 16

When authority figures order people lower down in the social hierarchy to act in cruel and torturous ways.

Question 17

Why do we act in an agentic state to destructive authority?

Answer 17

• We believe their authority is legitimate.
• We are simple following orders and consequences are the responsibility of the authority figure.

Question 18

What studies show vast differences in obedience rates in Milgram type replications.

Answer 18

• Kilhma & Mann (1974) found 16% of Australians went to full 450V.
• Whereas Mantell (1971) found figure was 85% for German participants.

Question 19

How does the cultural differences in obedience support the ‘Legitimacy of Authority’ explanation?

Answer 19

• In stricter cultures, where kids are raised with high levels of respect for authority figures, a higher rate of obedience is found. (Ger)
• In comparison, in the more relaxed cultures, authority is less legitimised and respected. (Aus)

Question 20

What is a example of when the ‘LoA explanation’ cannot explain instances of disobedience to a legitimate authority figure?

Answer 20

• 16/18 nurses in Rank & Jacobson’s study disobeyed a doctor.
• 35% of participants in Milgram’s study refused the experimenter’s demands to go to full 450V.

Question 21

How are the 16/18 nurses in Rank & Jacobson’s study who disobeyed the doctor a limitation of the ‘LoA explanation’?

Answer 21

• Doctor has unform, qualifications and a high status, so is legitimate.
• They disobeyed, so it must explained by something else, such as a ‘disobedient personality’.

Question 22

How can ‘LoA’ explain the Mai Lai massacre?

Answer 22

Lt Calley used the defense that he was ‘just doing his duty by following the orders of his military seniors’.

Question 23

How is Lt Calley’s situation a strength of the ‘LoA explanation’?

Answer 23

• Calley was released from prison, as courts found he was simple ‘following orders’.
• US Army was considered the ‘legitimate authority with the power to punish’, so the blame was put on the US Army instead.