Social Influence - Obedience Flashcards
Obedience
Act in response to a direct order from another person
Milgram’s study of obedience
40 American males volunteer to take part in a memory study, all were teacher roles (fixed) & were told to give the students electric shocks when they got a wrong answer + increasing the voltage -> prompted by an experimenter
Findings: 100% obeyed at 300V, 65% at maximum 450V
Strengths of Milgram
Reliability (Le Jeu De La Mort -> French reality show showed 80% delivered maximum shock -> replicated with similar results)
Generalisability (Hofling et al -> if nurses were told to break hospital rules, 21/22 would do so -> not limited to just a lab setting)
Limitations of Milgram
Lack internal validity (Orne & Holland -> participants didn’t always believe the shocks were real, Perry -> expressed doubts on reality of shocks -> results are inaccurate)
Ethics (causes participants distress having to administer harm to others as many believed they were real)
Situational variables affecting obedience
Location of study (Milgram - 47.5% obedience), proximity (Milgram - 40% in same room as learner, 30% in touch proximity, 20.5 remote), uniform of the experimenter (20% when experimenter dressed as member of public)
Strength of situational variables in Milgram’s research
Replicated in other countries (Miranda -> 90% obedience rate amongst Spanish students -> valid across cultures)
Limitations of situational variables in Milgram’s research
Demand characteristics (Orne -> more likely to appear with variations due to the manipulation -> agreed with by Milgram -> lack of internal validity)
Offers excuses for behaviours (Mandel -> offensive to survivors of Holocaust by saying Nazis were simply obeying orders & were victims themselves)
Agentic state
Mental state where no responsibility is felt due to acting for an authority figure (free from conscience)
Autonomous state
Free to behave according to their own principles
Legitimacy of authority
Appearing authoritative gives the right to exert control over others
Strength of agency theory
Credible (Blass & Schmitt -> showed a film of the study, asked who was responsible for harm -> most identified the experimenter as responsible due to authority)
Limitation of agency theory
Does not explain every aspect of the findings (35% did not obey in original study -> must be another explanation for why some remained autonomous)
Strength of legitimacy of authority
Cultural variations (replicated -> Kilham & Mann in Australia, 16% went to 450v -> Mantell in Germany, 85% -> some cultures have authority accepted as legitimate & entitled)
Dispositional variables of obedience
Personality characteristics -> authoritarian personality proposed by Fromm to explain right-wing conservative views (characterised: belief in absolute obedience, submission to authority, domination of minority)
How authoritarian personality is formed
Hierarchal parenting, strict discipline, impossibly high standards, anger displaced onto those seen as weaker as child builds resentment
