Obedience
- Created by: jessicawarren
- Created on: 03-05-16 09:25
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- Obedience
- What?
- Complying with an order from another person to carry out an action
- Person who gives instruction usually has power/ authority
- Situational variables
- Affect level of obedience shown by participants, but to do with external circumstances rather than personalities of people involved
- Proximity: Physical closeness of an authority figure to person they are giving order to
- Location: Place where an order is issued. Different locations have different amounts of status which could affect obedience levels
- Uniform: People in positions of authority often have a specific uniform which is symbolic of their authority e.g police
- Social psychological factors
- Influence of other people
- Agentic state: Mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting on behalf of an authority figure
- Autonomous state: Free to behave according to own principles, feel a sense of responsibility
- Milgram's Study
- Aim: 40 male volunteers deceived into thinking they were giving electric shocks. Investigating role of punishment in learning. Genuine participant = teacher, confederate= student. Participant watched confederate be strapped into chair
- Procedure: Shocks started at 15V, went up to 450V. If teacher hesitated, researcher encouraged them to continue. Experiemtn continued until participant refused to continue/ full 450V administered
- Findings: All participants went up to 300V, 65% went to full 450V. Most participants showed stress and extreme anxiety.
- Conclusion: Most people will obey orders that go against conscience.
- Ppts in agentic state: Perceived experimenters as authority figures, asked 'Will I be responsible for this?', under pressure
- Legitimacy of authority
- Explanation for obedience
- Suggests we are more likely to obey people we perceive to have authority over us
- Authority justified by individuals position of power within social hierarchy
- We obey because we accept authority figures have to exert power for society to function
- Destructive: Authority figures behave in way that is dangerous/ cruel- clearly shown in Milgram's study
- Dispositional explanations
- Refer to any explanation of behaviour that highlights importance of individual personality
- Authoritarian personality: Adorno argued was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority. Also thought to be submissive to superiors, dismissive of inferiors
- Adorno studied obedient personalisation. 2000 middle class Americans and observed how their racist attitudes link to authoritarian personalities
- Findings: Authoritarian personalities have tendency to obey. Extreme respect for authority, submissive. Highly controversial issues/attitudes, serve to higher authority. Everything wrong/right, dislike uncertainty
- Research Evidence
- Situational: Bickman- 3 confederates dressed in jacket/tie, milkman's outfit and security guard uniform. Stood in street, asked passers by to pick up litter/give change. Twice as likely to obey security guard than jacket/tie
- Social-psychological: Milgrma's study- people obeyed researcher in lab coat, entered agentic state
- Dispositional: Adorno found Americans and their unconcious attitudes towards other racial groups. People w/ authoritarian personality identified with strong people, looked down on weak
- Kilham&Mann- Replicated Milgrams procedure in Australia, found 16% ppts went whole voltage scale.
- Mantell found 85% German ppts went whole way
- Evaluation
- SV can't explain obedience in all situations- some people act of own will e.g Holocaust
- Difficult to use dispositional explanations- people within a group have different personalities but may display similar behaviours, social identity.
- Can't pinpoint why someone has obeyed, can be many reasons. Uncertain of cause and effect
- Anxiety could suggest being in agentic state. Cannot be sure why someone is doing something e.g through free will/ we have been told to
- Factors overlap, cannot be sure which factor obedience is down to
- Measuring dispositional explanations:Questionairres- social desirability, reduces validity
- What?
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