Situational Factors Affecting Obedience Flashcards
What are the situational factors affecting obedience?
Momentum of Compliance
Proximity
Uniform
Location/ Status
Witnessing Disobedience
Personal Responsibility
Charisma
Describe Momentum of Compliance.
Starting with small and trivial requests, the “teacher” (naïve participant) has committed themselves to the experiment. As the requirements of obedience increase, the pps feel obligated to continue, they have made a commitment and have already gone too far, to stop half-way through might suggest they were wrong to start in the first place. The situation created a binding relationship and is exemplified by the fact the shock generator increases in small increments of 15V (Milgram and Burger). Small levels of destructive obedience become much more significant and serious.
In the rundown Office Block, later research found that the earlier the procedure the participant challenged the experimenter, the more likely they were to be fully defiant, supporting the idea of momentum of compliance.
Describe proximity.
Describe Slater et Al and how it can make the findings applicable!
Both teacher and learner in the same room: obedience fell to 40%. Teacher required to force learners hand on shock plate: obedience gel to 30%.
When researcher left the room after getting instructions: obedience fell to 21%. (Some PPS even lied to the researcher about increasing voltage but stayed at the weakest shock level).
If there was a buffer or barrier between teacher and learner so the learner could not be seen or heard by the teacher: all went to 450V.
Slater et Al 2006 asked PPS to play role of teacher, interacting with a virtual learner and administer electric shocks at wrong answers via text messages. All PPS went to the highest level.
Consistent with Milgrams research, PPS who could see the animated victim were less obedient that those who only communicated with the victim via text.
Can be applied to important implication for cyber bullying.
Describe Uniform.
Describe Bickman 1974.
Describe Bushman 1988.
Describe Mauro 1984.
When the researcher did not have a laboratory coat (knowledgeable and clever), it reduced his perceived authoritative status: obedience dropped to 20%.
Bickman- 92% of pedestrians obey an order to either pick up litter or give a stranger money for a parking meter when the researcher was dressed as a security guard, compared to only 49% when the same man was dressed in civilian clothing. This suggests legitimate authority can be denoted by the use of a uniform.
Bushman- a female researcher dressed in either a police style uniform, or as a business executive or as a beggar, stopped people in the street & told them to give change to a male researcher for an expired parking meter. When dressed in police style: 72% obeyed. Business executive: 48%. Beggar: 52%. When interviewed after, people claimed they had obeyed the woman in uniform because she appeared to have more authority.
Mauro- US police department in California discontinued their traditional paramilitary style police uniform & adopted a more unorthodox ‘civilian’ style uniform in an attempt to improve police community relations; 8 years later the police reverted to the traditional style uniform, claiming that the Vivian uniform did not command sufficient respect & attacks on police doubles; assaults dropped when the traditional police uniform was re-introduced.
Describe Location/Status.
When the obedience research was moved from the prestigious Yale University to a rundown office block in Bridgeport supposedly called ‘Research Associates’, obedience levels dropped to 48%. This result suggests the high status of Yale University contributed to the high levels of obedience; nevertheless the status of science in society in general as a social institution contributed to quite high levels of obedience.
In experiment 13 when an ordinary man is giving the instructions, someone without status, obedience levels dropped to 20%.
Describe Witnessing Disobedience.
When there is social support for resisting obedience, the opposite can happen when there appears to be social support for obeying instructions that elicit destructively obedient acts.
Describe Personal Responsibility.
Where personal responsibility is removed & placed with the authority figure obedience increases. In another variation of Milgrams study, PPS had to sign a contract that stated they were taking part of their own free will and relinquishing any legal responsibility from Yale University- obedience fell to 40%.
People become more self-aware when they reflect more on what they are doing.
Describe the influence of Charisma.
House et Al 1991 defines charisma as “the ability of a leader to exercise diffuse & intensive influence over the beliefs, values, behaviour & performance of others”.
It appears that some leaders can induce especially high levels of obedience: it can have positive or negative consequences depending on the situation. Charismatic leader can either cause destructive obedience (Hitler) or positive change (Ghandi).
He suggests charismatic leaders have excellent communication skills, a high level of concern for the needs of their followers & mastery of impression management.
However social psychologists are now less interested in the personality of the leader and more on how they learn the obedience from others.
