Social influence: explanations for obedience

Question 1

What are two types of explanations for obedience?

Answer 1

-situational
-dispositional

Question 2

What is a type of situational explanation?

Answer 2

-legitimacy of authority

Question 3

What is legitimacy of authority?

Answer 3

-when people obey when an authority is higher on a social hierarchy (supported by institutional framework)

Question 4

What supports this type of situational explanation?

Answer 4

-milgrams variations:
.location: when the experiment was in an office instead of Yale obedience dropped from 65% to 48%
.uniform: when the experimenter didn’t wear a lab coat obedience dropped to 20%

Question 5

What research doesn’t support this type of situational explanation?

Answer 5

-it ignores dispositional factors
-milgrim: only saw 65% obedience (ignores why 35% didn’t obey)

Question 6

What are the 2 types of dispositional explanations?

Answer 6

-authoritarian personality
-agentic state

Question 7

What is agentic state?

Answer 7

-when people obey because they don’t feel responsible for their actions (act as an agent)
-may feel moral strain

Question 8

What research supports agentic state?

Answer 8

-milgrim variations:
.proximity of authority: when given orders over the phone obedience was only 20%
.proximity of victim: when teacher makes learner touch the shock plate obedience was 30%

Question 9

What research doesn’t support agentic state?

Answer 9

-many of milgrams participants remained disobeyed

Question 10

What is authoritarian personality?

Answer 10

-some people have a personality that makes them more likely to obey (more likely to have rigid conservative political views)

Question 11

What research supports authoritarian personality?

Answer 11

-explains individual differences in obediences

Question 12

What research doesn’t support authoritarian personality?

Answer 12

-situational variables may be more important
-elms and milgram:
.found no link between f scores and relationship with parents