Obediance

• obedience 


  a form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual who is usually an authority figure
• Findings of Milgram's Study 


  no participant stopped below 300 volts

  12.5% of participants stopped at 300 volts

  65% continued to the full voltage

  qualitative data was collected

  all participants were debriefed
• Situational variables - Proximity - distance from one another


  Change - same room

  Findings - obedience dropped from 60% to 40%

  Change - touch proximity

  Findings - teacher has to force learners hand onto electric shock plate if they refused - obedience dropped to 30%

  Change - remote instruction - phone call

  Findings - obedience dropped to 20.5%
• situational variables - location


  change - run down office block

  findings - reduced to 47.5%

  explanation - Yale = legitimacy and authority

  run down office = scientific nature of experiment
• situational variables - uniform 


  change - experimenter in lab coat changes to ordinary person in ordinary clothing

  findings - obedience dropped to 20%

  explanation - uniforms are a symbol of authority - their authority is legitimate
• agency theory 


  individual acts as an agent for someone else and assume that the person giving orders is taking responsibility
• agentic state 


  when they act on behalf someone else and would
• autonomous state 


  where they behave according to their own principles
• why do participants act in agentic state 


  they use aspects of the situation to minimise the damaging effects of their behaviour
• legitimacy of authority 


  likely to follow orders given by people who we believe have legitimate authority
• agentic shift 


  occurs when a person perceives someone to be of an authority figure
• destructive authority 


  problems arise when legitimate authority becomes destructive
• dispositional factors 


  the individual or personal characteristics of a person that may affect how they behave or obey
• Resistance to social influence 


  the ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or obey authority .
• social support - conformity 


  Social support helps resist conformity. In Asch's research, conformity decreased when the naïve participant had an ally giving a different answer. This broke the unanimity of the majority.
• social support - obedience 


  Social support can help individuals resist obedience. In Milgram's variations, when participants were accompanied by a confederate who disobeyed, their own obedience decreased, showing that having someone else defy authority can reduce the pressure to conform
• locus of control

  People with an internal locus of control believe they have control over their actions (e.g., through hard work) and are more likely to resist pressures to conform or obey, as they take personal responsibility. In contrast, those with an external locus of control feel things happen outside their control. However, they tend to be more self-confident, intelligent, and have less need for social approval, traits that can also contribute to greater resistance.