Social Psychology - Obedience

Question 1

Obedience to Authority

Answer 1

The willingness of soldiers in Nazi Germany to participate in mass genocide spurred a great deal of research on the effects of authoritarian figures on our behaviour, and peoples propensity to follow their instructions even though they’re morally wrong

Question 2

The Milgram Experiment

Answer 2

What do participants do in this type of situation?

Do they continue with harming the person or do they stop?

• Seeing how participants responds to authoritative figure’s demands even though the experiment is morally wrong
• Authoritative figures have a lot of influence on our behaviours

Manipulation: the distance between participants and the other person. Either in separate rooms, or in a glass room, and in the same room as you…. Reducing distance between participant and other person

Result: If you personalize the individual that you are hurting, you become less likely to harm people and raise objections, moral instincts kick in.

What it has to do with war fare: weapon technology reduces the distance between the people harming each other —> drones, sniper rifles …etc..

Distance from the victim turns the situation to less personal and becomes easier to not see them as a real human being and you don’t weight the moral considerations as much and you do what the authoritative figure tells you to do

• People become more likely to object from what they’re told to do if they’re closer to the victim
• Whether or not theres another person whos willing to object to the experiment itself
• Having another person who disagrees makes other people more likely to disagree and speak up as well

Manipulation: Helper (2nd person) is either going along with the researcher OR helper is voicing moral concerns throughout the experiment

Result: when the helper Is going along with the experiment we see more people going along with the experiment.

When the helper voices concerns, the strength of the authoritative figure breaks down and the experiment stops because the participant agrees and stops. This is DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY