Situational Factors affecting obedience

Question 1

What are the three situational/environmental factors affecting obedience?

Answer 1

• status of authority figure
• proximity (closeness)
• culture

Question 2

Explain ‘status of authority’ as a factor affecting obedience, providing evidence

Answer 2

Explanation: Milgram stated that obedience could only be established when the authority figure was to be perceived to be legitimate.

Evidence: This was found to be the case when the experiment was conducted at Yale Uni, and obedience fell when the location was moved to Bridgeport ( 66% to 48%) or when it was conducted by an ordinary man.

Question 3

Explain ‘proximity (closeness)’ as a factor affecting obedience, providing evidence

Answer 3

Explanation: The closer the authority figure, the higher the level of obedience. Distance seems to be a way of increasing dissent.

Evidence: In experiment 7 , when the experimenter left the room, obedience dropped to 22.5%. The teachers lied about the shock level meters increasing , when instead they administered lower shocks.

Likewise, the proximity of the victim also acted a buffer to obedience . When learner was in same room as teacher of when teacher had to physically place hand of learner on shock plate, obedience dropped.

Or when the learner was in another room where they couldn’t be seen or heard, there was 100% obedience.

Question 4

Explain ‘culture’ as a factor affecting obedience, providing evidence

Answer 4

Explanation:
-Culture can be divided into individualistic (where USA and UK behave more independent and resist compliance) and collectivist cultures. For e.g China & Israel behave as a group so cooperation is important for stability of group.

Evidence:

• Uk ( researchers Burley & Mc guiness) = 50%
• USA (researcher Milgrim ) = 65%
• Jordon ( researchers: Shanab & Yahya) =73%
• South Africa ( researcher: Edwards)=82.5%

Question 5

Evaluate the factor: status of authority

Answer 5

• The fact that 35% of participants were not fully obedient in the original Milgram study shows that the situational pressures didn’t influence all participants in the same way.
• Even in experiment 10 (Bridgeport) obedience levels were still high

Question 6

Evaluate the factor: culture

Answer 6

-Although some might argue that obedience levels are not universal, on closer inspection it seems that the variation in percentage of participants who gave the full shock is more a product of the exact procedure used rather than cultural variations.