Social influence: obedience

Question 1

What are situational variables?

Answer 1

• features of the immediate physical and social environment which may influence a person’s behaviour

Question 2

What effect did proximity have?

Answer 2

When the teacher and learner were in the same room, obedience levels fell from 65 to 40%.
When the experimenter gave orders by phone, obedience levels fell to 20.5%

Question 3

Why did proximity have this effect?

Answer 3

Because when there is a physical distance, it allows the participant to psychologically distance themselves from the consequences of their actions

Question 4

What effect did location have?

Answer 4

When the experiment was conducted in a run down office building, obedience fell from 65% to 47.5%

Question 5

Why did location have this effect?

Answer 5

The prestigious Yale university gives the experiment legitimacy and authority

Question 6

What effect did uniform have?

Answer 6

When the experimenter was wearing ordinary clothes as opposed to a lab coat, obedience fell to 20%

Question 7

Why did uniform have this effect?

Answer 7

they are widely recognised symbols of authority, so they encourage obedience

Question 8

What are some strengths of using situational variables to evaluate obedience?

Answer 8

• there is research support for the uniform variation, where people were twice as likely to obey someone dressed as a security guard
• his findings have been replicated in other cultures

Question 9

What are some weaknesses of using situational variables to evaluate obedience?

Answer 9

• participant likely knew the experiment was faked
• offers an ‘alibi’ for evil behaviour

Question 10

What are situational explanations?

Answer 10

Explanations for obedience that are still situational, but concern the dynamics of social hierarchies

Question 11

What is the agentic state?

Answer 11

a mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour, as we are acting for an authority figure

Question 12

What are some positives for the agentic state explanation?

Answer 12

• ## research support by Milgram, when the experimenter took responsibility for the participants’ actions, they obeyed more easily

Question 13

What are some negatives for the agentic state explanation?

Answer 13

• limited explanation, meaning that the agentic shift can only account for some situations

Question 14

What is legitimacy of authority?

Answer 14

an explanation for obedience that states we are more likely to obey someone we deem to have power over us

Question 15

What are some positives of the legitimacy of authority explanation?

Answer 15

• explains some cultural differences, showing that in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate

Question 16

What are some negatives of the legitimacy of authority explanation?

Answer 16

• cannot explain all obedience or disobedience, as in situations whee there is a clear social hierarchy

Question 17

What is the dispositional explanation of obedience?

Answer 17

any explanation of behaviour that includes the individual’s personality (their disposition)

Question 18

What is an authoritarian personality?

Answer 18

• Adorno et al. found that people with an authoritarian personality show an extreme level of respect towards authority
• these people view people of a lower social status as ‘weaker’
• they have very black and white thinking

Question 19

How does an authoritarian personality develop?

Answer 19

• Adorno et al. believed that it forms in childhood as a result of harsh and strict parenting
• the child’s frustration and resentment toward their parents cannot be directed towards them for fear of punishment, so they are displaced towards other people who they view to be weaker
• this process is known as scapegoating

Question 20

How did Adorno et al. research this?

Answer 20

• they created a test called the
  F-scale, where they ranked people based on how fascist their ideas were
• they found that people who scored high on the F-scale had authoritarian personalities

Question 21

What are some positives of the dispositional explanation?

Answer 21

• research support from Milgram where obedient participants scored highly on the F-scale

Question 22

What are some negatives of the dispositional explanation?

Answer 22

• cannot explain obedience in the majority of a country’s population, as it is unlikely that that number of people all have authoritarian personalities
• the f-scale is politically biased towards an extreme form or right wing ideology