situational explanations of obedience

Question 1

situational variables

Answer 1

external e.g. environment/situation
anyone in this situation will behave like this

Question 2

dispositional variables

Answer 2

internal e.g. personality/morality/self-esteem
in any situation this person will behave like this

Question 3

obedience alibi

Answer 3

an excuse for being obedient to someone to avoid facing the consequences for the obedience e.g. nazis

Question 4

legitimacy of authority

Answer 4

we will obey an authority if we think it’s legitimate
in society we are structured in a hierarchical way
e.g. teachers, police, parents etc have authority

they’re granted power and acceptance by society by individuals giving up independence in order for members of authority to take control

Question 6

destructive authority

Answer 6

a legitimate authority can use their power to control people to do cruel and dangerous acts against their conscience

Question 7

one strength

Answer 7

p: this explanation of obedience can support milgrams findings e: when legitimacy of authority was reduced e.g. moved to a run down office, levels of obedience reduced t: this shows what was expected by the experimenter which increases validity of the study

Question 8

one weakness

Answer 8

p: it can’t explain why disobedience occurs even in an established hierarchy e: Rank+Jacobson’s study 16/18 nurses disobeyed the orders despite there being a level of hierarchy and despite usually obeying t: legitimacy of authority would’ve expected them to obey making it not a valued explanation

Question 9

agentic state

Answer 9

people obey when and because they are in the agentic state

                       agentic shift autonomous state <—> agentic state independent/free            act as an  responsible for own        agent of  actions                               authority 
                                        don’t accept 
                  responsibility for actions

Question 11

binding factors

Answer 11

keeping u in agentic state
1) social etiquette
2) blaming the victim
3) denying the damage of actions

Question 12

one strength

Answer 12

p: this explanation of obedience can be used to explain milgrams findings e: in milgrams study they didn’t take responsibility for their actions as they were told the experimenter holds the responsibility if the learner got harmed, seen as a member of authority t: this is expected behaviour of experimenters

Question 13

one weakness

Answer 13

p: it can’t explain why disobedience occured in Rank and Jacobsons study
e: considering they were ordered by a member of authority this should have lead them to be in the agentic state and obey authority however they remained in autonomous and took responsibility t: the agentic state would have predicted the nurses to obey and not take responsibility