Social (Obediance)

Question 1

Describe obedience.

Answer 1

Obedience:

A form of social pressure in which an individual obeys or disobeys commands or instructions (often given by a figure of authority).

Question 2

Date and describe one key study of obedience.

What is the significance of this study?

Answer 2

Milgram (1963) study of obedience

Method:
- Three individuals took part

• Two were Milgram’s confederates, the third was a participant
• One of Milgram’s confederates wore a lab coat acting as the experimenter, the other acted as another participant
• The participant and the confederate participant selected roles of ‘teacher’ and ‘learner’ from a hat - this was fixed so the participant always selected teacher
• The teacher was told to read a series of questions and word patterns to the student, who sat in a separate room
• The teacher was told to issue an electric shock to the student got answers wrong, increasing the voltage each time.
• The shock controls were labelled clearly to show the danger of the level of voltage
• Recordings of the confederate participant were played back upon each question - getting more distressed as the voltage increased and eventually going silent
• If the teacher hesitated they received up to three prompts from the experimenter to continue

Results:
- 26 out of the 40 participants issued the lethal, maximum shock level (450V)

• All participants issued at least 300V despite the switches being labelled “damaging to humans”
• Some showed signs of distress however continued upon prompting from the experimenter

Evaluation:
- Done in a lab, therefor lacks ecological validity and cannot necessarily be generalised to real life situations

• However, findings have been supported by other studies e.g. Hofling et al (66) study in hospitals

Question 3

Describe 3 situational factors that may effect obedience.

Answer 3

Situational factors effecting obedience:

Legitimate authority - Before obeying orders an individual will often look for clues to see if the person giving orders has the authority to do so. An individual is more likely to obey if they believe the person giving orders is an authority figure e.g. A police officer

Proximity
- This is the physical separation or distance between the person giving orders and the people/person receiving orders. In Milgrams experimment (1963) when the authority figure (experimenter) was separated from the teacher, the teachers obedience fell

Location
- The status of a location may affect the way an authority figure is perceived and therefor affect an individuals obedience. When the location of the Milgram experiment (1963) was changed to a rundown office obedience fell by 47%

Peers
- Peers are those who are similar to an individual e.g. Friends and family. In the presence of peers who disobey, an individuals obedience may also fall as there is less personal responsibility. When Milgram (1963) introduced another teacher into his experiment, he found that obedience was reduced.

Question 4

Describe three social factors which may affect obedience?

Answer 4

Social factors effecting obedience:

Parenting

• The way people are brought up by their parents can affect how obedient they are.
• Democratic parents encourage their children to think for themselves and make their own rational decisions
• Authoritarian parents teach their children to obey and respect the authority without question

Socialisation
- In most societies we are socialised to respect the hierarchy and follow orders from those in authority. During infancy people are rewarded for obeying authority figures like their parents and school teachers, this then socialises us to obey more later in life.

Question 5

What is Agency Theory?

Answer 5

Agency theory:

Milgram suggested that when people are comfortable they tend to take control of their own decisions (autonomous) but in times of stress or conflict, they tend to look toward authority figures for orders (agentic).