Obedience and Prejudice

Aim - to see if people would obey an authority figure if the order involved harming other people

Procedure -

•  40 male, American participants, aged 20-50
• Yale University, Volunteer Sampling
• The experimenter and Mr Wallace - learner were stooges
• Learner learnt word pairs and recalled them incorrectly when asked by the participant - scripted
• Participants gave incresing shocks for wrong answers - up to 450v
• 4 prods if participnats refused to continue

Results - 65% to 450v, 100% to 300v

Conclusion - obey authority figures as brought up to - obey parents and teachers

• G - lacks generalisability - American, male
• R - standardised procedure and scripted - easily replicated and tested for reliability
• A - good application to real life - people obey authoirty
• V - lacks ecological - artifical setting
• E - Unethical - no right to withdraw, distress, deception, no informed consent

Aim - to test if obedience rate is affected by witnessing others behaviour

Proceducre

• 80 male, American participants aged 20-50
• 1st condition - 2 rebellious stooges - one refused to continue at 150v and other at 210v
• 2nd condition - 2 obedient stooges - obeyed willingly

Results - Rebellious - 15% to 450v, Obedient - 72.5% to 450v

Conclusion - participants and obedience rate affected by others - rebellious stooges had most affect on participants

• G - lacks generalisability - American, male
• R - standardised procedure and scripted - easily replicated and tested for reliability
• A - good application to real life - people obey authoirty
• V - lacks ecological - artifical setting
• E - Unethical - no right to withdraw, distress, deception, no informed consent

Aim - obey orders in everyday situations and to physchologically harm others

Procedure

• 39 Dutch, male and female participants
• Volunteer sampling
• Interviewee - stooge
• 15 increasingly stressful comments
• Prods to continue
• Experimental condition - experimenter present
• Control condition - no experimenter present

Results - 92% made all comments in experimental condition, 0% made all comments in control condition

Conclusion - people will obey orders to psychologically harm others in everyday situations - job interview

• G - good generalisability - female and male
• R - standardised procedure and scripted - easily replicated and tested for reliability
• A - good application to real life - shows obey authoirty in real situations - job interview
• V - good ecological - real life situation
• E - Unethical - no right to withdraw, distress, deception, no informed consent

In an agentic state people don't feel responsible for actions so may as well go against moral code - moral strain

This explains obedience of authority figure.

When not obeying in an autonomous state - independent

Agentic state is learnt from parents, school and society

• S - Milgrams studies and Hofling et al
• O - Description of how soceity works not an explanation
• D - Social power - people obey someone with power
• A - Explains diffenent levels of obedience and explains Abu Grahib and Holocaust

Prejudice occurs when 2 groups are formed and conflict occures between them

Social Categorisation leads to social identification and then social comparison

• S - Lalonde and Sherif et al
• O - focuses on group prejudice - individual prejudice occurs too
• D - Realistic Conflict - not just the formation of two groups but competition that creates prejudice
• A - explains real life events - Holocaust, suggests ways to solve social problems

Similarities:

• Test obedience
• Scripted and standardised procedure - easily replicate and reliable
• Artifical setting
• Prods
• Volunteer Sampling
• Supports Agency Theory
• Stooges

Differences:

• Different country
• Milgram = physical harm, Meeus = psychological harm
• Milgram = 65% completed all shock levels, Meeus = 92% all stressful comments
• Milgram = experimenter always preseny, Meeus = experimenter not always present - 2 conditions
• Milgram - participants can't see harm caused, Meeus = can see the harm - distress