SITUATIONAL FACTORS AFFECTING OBEDIENCE Flashcards
What are the 6 situational factors affecting obedience?
- Momentum of compliance
- Proximity
- Uniform
- Location
- Witnessing disobedience
- Personal responsibility
Situational factors - Momentum of Compliance
As requirements of obedience increase, the pps feel obligated to continue, they have a commitment, and to stop half way, might suggest to them, that they were wrong to start in the first place (point of no return)
In Milgram’s run down office block variation, research found that the earlier the pps challenged the experimenter, the more likely they were to be fully defiant, supporting the idea of momentum of compliance
Situational factors - Proximity
Milgrams Variations
- If the teacher & leaner were in the same room, obedience fell to 40%
- If the teacher was required to force the learners hand onto a shock plate, obedience fell to 30%
- When the orders were given over the phone, obedience fell to 21%
All because the teacher was able to experience the learners pain more or less direcly
This supports Latane’s theory of proximity affecting obedience, as the further the proximity, the less obedience was demonstrated
Situational factors - Uniform
Milgram variation - experimenter wearing/ not wearing a lab coat as a symbol of his authority
(affected perceived legitimacy of authority figure)
Not wearing - obedience dropped to 20%
Situational factors - Location
Milgram variation - study takes place in a run-down office block instead of the prestigious Yale university
Obedience dropped to 47.5%
Situational factors - Personal responsibility
Where the pps responsibility is given to the authority figure (in an agent state) obedience increases, whereas when pps had to sign a contract stating they were completely responsible, obedience fell to 40%
Situational factors - Witnessing disobedience
Where is social support for resisting obedience, people find it easier to disobey
E.g - Milgram’s variation with 3 teachers (2 disobedient confederates and 1 naive pps)
90% of naive pps also disobeyed
Situational factors (evaluation) - Bickman (1974)
- Bickman had 3 confederates dress in 3 different outfits, a jacket and tie, a milkman, and a security guard.
- Confederates asked people to pick up a piece of litter
- People were twice as likely to obey the one dressed as a security guard then the one dressed in a jacket and tie
- This research supports Milgram’s conclusions that uniform can affect the authoritativeness of its wearer. It is a situational factor likely to produce more or less obedience
Situational factors (evaluation) - Orne and Holland
- Orne and Holland criticised Milgram by saying many of his pps realised that the experiment was fake and the learner wasn’t really being shocked, which is made even more likely in variations due to more manipulation.
- For example, when the experimenter was replaced by a member of the public, (which even Milgram recognised that the situation was so contrived some participants could’ve figured it out)
- This shows that it is unclear whether the results are genuinely due to the operation of obedience or because the pps saw through the deception
- His research may lack internal validity
Situational factors (evaluation) - Miranda et al vs Smith & Bond
- Milgrams findings have been replicated in other cultures
- Miranda found obedience rates of over 90% amongst Spanish students suggesting that Milgram’s conclusions about obedience are not limited to American males but are valid across cultures and apply to females too
- However, Smith and Bond showed that most replications of Milgrams study occur in developed, western societies, which are not culturally different from the USA
- Despite this, the results matter because it shows that Milgram’s findings do not just apply to Americans
What does situational factors mean?
= environmental factors, that affect an individual level of obedience
