Obedience

• What is obedience?

  When someone acts in response to a direct order from an authority figure. They may disagree privately
• How does obedience differ to conformity?


  It is usually from the demands of an individual of higher status rather than a group
• What type of conformity is obedience similar to?


  Compliance
• Who was Adolf Eichmann?


  A member of the Nazi party who implemented the final solution but when on trial just said that he was following orders
• What is agency theory?


  Milgram described when people claim to just ‘follow orders’ they are acting as an ‘agent‘ of the authority figure
• What is the agentic state?


  When people will believe that they are acting on behalf of someone else and feel no sense of responsibility or guilt for their behaviours
• What is the autonomous state?


  A state of independence in which they have the free will to choose how to behave and take full responsibility for their actions
• What are binding factors?


  Aspects of a situation that bind us to a task and allow us to block out he moral strain we are experiencing
• What is legitimacy of authority?


  when a person recognises their own and other’s position in a social hierarchy
• What is an authoritarian personality?


  Adorno described this as a person who has extreme respect for authority and is more likely to be obedient and submissive to those who hold power over them
• What are characteristics of an authoritarian personality?


  “Blindly” obeying, submissive to authority, aggression to minorities
• How does someone develop an authoritarian personality?


  Result of rigid and strict parenting that usually included physical punishments
• What is the F scale?


  It was developed in 1950 to assess is someone has an authoritarian personality (the ‘f’ stands for fascist)
• What are strengths of using the f scale?


  Understand role of personalities in prejudice, a way to empirically measure authoritarianism
• What are weaknesses of the f scale?


  Response bias, oversimplified complexity of prejudice (validity), cultural bias limits generalisability
• What are issues with linking authoritarian personalities with obedience?


  Correlational date doesn’t prove causation as it could be other factors
• What is a scapegoat?


  Tendency to blame someone else for one’s own problems. Explains failure while maintaining own positive image