Situational And Dispositional Explanations

Question 1

What are three situational explanations of obedience?

Answer 1

Legitimate authority
Graduated commitment
Agentic shift

Question 2

Why would group size effect ability to resist obedience?

Answer 2

A larger group will exert more pressure on someone to conform so reducing the size of the group will make it easier to resist conforming

Question 3

Why would the presence of disobedience allies have an affect on ability to resist obedience?

Answer 3

If someone else refuses an order it may give the person the confidence that they can also refuse an order

Question 4

Why does reducing legitimate authority help us to resist obedience?

Answer 4

From a young age we are brought up to obey people who have legitimate authority however if this authority is reduced we no longer feel we have to obey

Question 5

What is the name in psychology for lifting personal responsibility from a participant?

Answer 5

Agentic shift

Question 6

What are five things we can do to resist obedience?

Answer 6

Ask if you’d do this without an order
Beware graduated commitment
Find an ally
Take responsibility

Question 7

What are the two locuses of control?

Answer 7

External and internal

Question 8

What characterises an internal locus of control?

Answer 8

They perceive themselves as having a great deal of personal control over their behaviour

Question 9

Why does having an internal locus of control tend to make people less obedient?

Answer 9

They take more responsibility for their actions

Question 10

What is an external locus of control?

Answer 10

They perceive events that happen as being outside of their control - instead they are controlled by external influences or luck

Question 11

Why does an external locus of control lead to a more obedient personality?

Answer 11

They place responsibility for their actions on others

Question 12

Which psychologists carried out a study investigating the relationship between conformity levels and locus of control?

Answer 12

Burger and Cooper

Question 13

What did Burger and Cooper find?

Answer 13

People with a high internal locus of control were less likely to conform to the Confederate as he was expressing an opinion about the funniness of cartoons

Question 14

Who carried out the meta-analysis of studies of the relationship between LoC and different forms of social influence?

Answer 14

Avtgis

Question 15

Who investigated the background of participants who were classed as disobedient participants in Milgram’s experiments

Answer 15

Elms and Milgram

Question 16

What are the main characteristics of the authoritarian personality?

Answer 16

Likely to adhere to conventional values and have a belief in absolute obedience or submission to authority

Question 17

What is the name of the scale measuring authoritarian personality

Answer 17

The F scale

Question 18

On what personality scale did the 20 obedient participants and the 20 defiant participants score similarly?

Answer 18

MMPI test

Question 19

Why might participants with the authoritarian personality be more likely to continue to last voltage?

Answer 19

Obedient participants of authority figure in Milgram study is more admirable and the learner less so therefore they were higher on the trait of authoritarianism

Question 20

Why does Milgram’s study cast doubt on the authoritarian personality theory?

Answer 20

Unlikely that 65% of Ps who fully obeyed all had this personality type

Question 21

How did Milgram defend his opinion that situational factors are more important than dispositional factors?

Answer 21

He showed that increasing proximity between the teacher and learner decreased from 65% to 40%