Obedience

Obedience - following orders or commands from authority figures

Authority - level of status/power

Defiance - resisting orders or commands from people in authority

Denial of responsibility - passing blame to someone in authority

• Factors relating to situations affect obedience, not personality
• Setting - physical environment of where something takes place
• Culture - country/region
• Authority - level of authority/perceived authority someone has
• Punishment - consequences for actions
• Consensus - following norm

Hoffling's hospital experiment & Milgram's electric shock experiment

Evaluation

• Lacks ecological validity - labs cause demand characteristics
• Ethical issues - distress & embarrassment
• Doesn't consider role of personality

The dispositional factors theory refers to factors about themselves & their personality traits. It says that a person may be obedient because of their personality traits, not due to situational factos.

A person is obedient to authority figures, but disobedient to those considered lower.

Authoritarian personality - a personality type prone to obedience

• More likely to conform
• Are subservient to people of higher status
• Intolerant to people considered inferior
• Intoloerant to those who are different

There is a correlation between authoritarian personalities and harsh upbringings.

• Have an unconscious hostility they can't show parents
• Grow up to respect authority

• Aim: to investigate the effect of appearance on obedience
• Participants: 153 pedestrains in Brooklyn
• Method: Field experiment, confederates, 3 male experimentors in a guard, milkman and civilian's uniform
• Procedure: Confederates took turns in each outfit and gave orders 'pick up this bag for me' - milkman, 'this man's over parked at the meter and doesn't have enough change, spare him a dime?' - guard and 'didn't you know you have to stand on the other side of the bus stop sign?' - civilian.
• Results: participants were three times as likely to obey the guard than the civilian. Guard 89%, Milkman 57% & Civilian 33%
• Conclusion: Appearance effects levels of obedience

Evaluation

• Lack of control over extraneous variables - field experiment
• Ignores individual differences - no knowledge of participants' upbringing
• Unethical - no consent, right to withdraw or debrief and some distress was caused

Hierarchy - structure of society with descending line of commans - person at the top has the most power. Hierarchy keeps order in schools, prisons and the army.

Prisions

• Situational factors promotes obedience - guards wear uniforms to show power & so they are easily identified. Prisoners wear uniforms to get rid of identity and prevent rebellion. Prisoners receive punishments

School

• Similar hierarchy
• Uniforms & punishments stop disobedience

Army

• Uniform & punishments