Social Influence: Social Psychological explanations for obedience and situational variables affecting it Flashcards
What does obedience mean?
taking direct orders from someone with perceived authority
What are the 2 social-psychological explanations for obedience?
Legitimacy of authority
Agentic state
Describe and explain the legitimacy of authority explanation…
3 points
-in hierarchial societies there are people who hold authority over the rest
-this is legitimate as it is agreed by society and allows it to function smoothly
-people learn this acceptance from parents/teachers/other adults in their childhood
Describe the agentic state explanation
4 points
-we act as an agent for an authority figure and we don’t feel responsible for our actions
-we stop acting according to our conscience and we feel the figure is responsible
-we become individuated
-we may experience high anxiety but we feel powerless to disobey
What does individuated mean?
What can it result in?
when we lose our sense of individuality
may result in us obeying orders that are against our moral code
Evaluate the social psychological explanations for obedience…
2 strengths and 1 weakness
+evidence to support from Blass and Schmidt 2001
showed Milgrams experiment to ppts and asked them who they thought was responsible for the harm to the learner , students blamed the experimenter as they were a ‘legitimate authority figure’ so ppts acted on behalf of them
+can account for RL situations
My Lai Massacre where 400 were killed because of an order from 1 army general , this supports the LoA explanation and adds external validity to it
-limited explanation as the obedience rates in Milgrams experiment were not 100% , neither explanation can account for why some people didn’t obey
What are the 3 situational variables that affect obedience?
proximity
location
uniform
What does proximity refer to and how does it influence obedience?
the physical closeness of authority figure to the person they are ordering
obedience increases as proximity increases as it encourages the move to the agentic state , obedience decreases as consequences of actions are more obvious
How does location influence obedience?
obedience is influenced by the status associated with the location that the order was issued in as it conveys the legitimacy of authority
-obedience rates are often highest in institutionalised settings as obedience is instilled into members
What is meant by uniform and how does it influence obedience?
people of authority often have specific outfits that are symbolic of their authority
these indicate who is entitled to expect our obedience as it conveys the legitimacy of the authority figure
Evaluate situational variables affecting obedience
Name and explain the 2 strengths…
+Milgram’s work was done in a lab and followed systematic and standardised procedures , this allowed situational variables to be directly studied , this ensures that cause and effect can be est which increases the validity
+supporting research from Slater 2006
he replicated Milgram using virtual reality and found ppts who couldn’t see victims gave maximum shocks whereas ppts in visible condition this didn’t happen which supports idea of proximity affecting obedience
Evaluate situational variables affecting obedience
Name and explain the 2 weaknesses…
-contradictory research from Mandel 2008
suggested situational variables don’t apply to all real life situations such as the mass killing of Jews in WW2 even though soldiers weren’t in presence of superiors , this challenges the external validity
-other explanations such as dispositional factors which suggests situational variables are not a complete explanation for obedience
What is the dispositional explanation for obedience and who was it devised by?
The Authoritarian personality
Adorno et al 1950
Make 2 initial points about the authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience
-obedience is due to a persons internal traits rather than the situation
-its shaped in early childhood and results from overly strict , rigid parenting
What did Adorno use to measure whether someone has this personality type?
What did he find?
the f scale
he found those who scored highly were more obedient
Give the 5 main characteristics of an authoritarian personality
-rigid obedience to authority figures
-submissive to authority
-conventional attitudes towards sex , race and gender
-hostile towards those of lower status
-belief in the need for strong leaders to enforce traditional values such as love of country
Evaluate the authoritarian personality as a dispositional explanation for obedience
1 strength and 3 weaknesses
+research support from Elms and Milgram 1966
found ppts who were highly obedient in the experiment scored much higher on the F scale than disobedient ppts , which supports the link between obedience and authoritarian personality type
-cause and effect
its only a correlation between the personality type and obedient behaviour so its impossible to conclude that having this personality type causes obedience
-validity of F scale
a high score for authoritarianism can be obtained by ticking same line of boxes down one side of the page , therefore it may be testing peoples tendency to agree to everything rather than personality type
-other explanations , such as social psychological or situational variables
