Obedience

BAG PAC

Buffers

Agentic Shift

Contractual Obligation

Gradual Commitment

Personality Factors

Authority (Legitimate)

Definition:

Aspects of the situation which hide the consequences of people's actions and reduce strain on immoral behaviour.

Examples:

Obedience reduced to 40% from 65% when teacher and learner were in the same room.

Implications/Applications:

People are more likely to do things when removed from the consequences.

Raise awareness about cyber bullying.

Definition:

We feel obliged to obey those whose credentials we respect.

Examples:

Obedience dropped from 65% to 47.5% when experiment was moved to a seedy office.

Bickman- people most likely to obey people in guards uniform.

Implications/Applications:

Criminals can use the uniforms of others to commit crimes.
Paramedics are repsected and left to do their job because people trust and respect them.

Definition:

Complying with intially trivial tests makes it more difficult to disengage from escalating requests.

Examples:

Milgram showed how people found it difficult to disengage from the small 15V increment, as each increase seemed so insignificant.

Implications/Applications:

Nazi Germany- casual racism lead to death camps.

In the workplace, if you increases responsibility slowly, that can increase productivity.

e.g.

Authoritarian personality believed in strong authority and submission to it. Psychopathic personalities have tendency towards harm of others.

Examples:

Authoritarian personalities went to high voltages with less regret, and psychopaths went higher because they enjoyed it.

People from cultures which are under dictation will be more likely to obey as they have grown up believing that is normal.

Defintions:

Humans operate on two levels- the individual level and the agentic level, in which people's actions become someone else's responisbility.

Examples:

Participants were told they had no responsibility over what happened to the leaner, they were more likely to go up to 450v.

Implications/Appplications

People are capable of immoral behaviour on someone elses behalf. 

Bosses getting middle men to fire people.

Definition:

People feel obliged to obey when paid or signed into a contract.

Examples:

Milgram's participants were paid $4.50 before the experiment, and many recorded feeling obliged to continue.

Implications/Applications:

People are capable of continuing immoral work if paid for it.