obedience

• Obedience is a form of social influence where an individual follows A direct order, the person issuing the order is usually someone with authority or power
• situational variables are the factors that influence the behaviour of the individual in a particular social environment
• the agentic state is a situational explanation of obedience
• the agentic state is a mental state in which we feel no responsibility for our behaviour as we believe we are acting on behalf of an authority figure
• the autonomous state is the opposite of the agentic state stating that a persons behaviour is determined by their own principles and as a result they feel responsible for their own actions
• legitimate of authority is a situational explanation of obedience
• legitimacy of authority suggests we are more likely to obey authority figures as we perceive them to have the right to do so
• in milligrams location variation obedience fell from 65% to 47.5%
• bickman investigated the effect of uniform on obedience and found 76% obeyed the man dressed as a guard, 47% obeyed the milkman, and 30% obeyed the pedestrian- shows the effect of uniform on obedience
• in milgrams proximity variation: teacher and learner in same room=40% obedience rate, teacher forces learners hand= 30% showing that the closer the level of proximity, the lower the obedience
• what participants in milgrams study were in the agentic state, obedience rose from 65% to 92.5%
• milgrams experiment was criticised because it lacked ecological validity, he used deception, and there may be demand characteristics
• In milgrams baseline study 65% of participants delivered the 350V
• In milgrams proximity variation where the teacher was forcing the learner’s hand, 30% delivered the 350V
• In milgrams proximity variation where instructions were delivered to the learner over the phone, 20.5% of participants delivered the 350V
• milligrams study is said top have low internal validity as Orne and Holland claimed that participants behaved as they did as they didn't really believe the setup. However, Sheridan and King found that 54% of men and 100% of women would deliver a fatal shock to a puppy - showing milligrams results were accurate
• Real life applications of milgrams study — This research opened our eyes to the problem of obedience and so may reduce future obedience in response to destructive authority figures e.g. obedience has resulted in negative social change - the Nazis obeyed orders and as a result, Hitler managed to get what he wanted and what he wanted was not what the majority of people wanted. Such research also gives an insight into why people were so willing to kill innocent Jews simply when told to, and so highlights how we can all easily be victims to such pressures.
• Dispositional explanation = internal explanation i.e personality factors/individual reasons why someone obeys. - authoritarian personality
• authoritarian personality means a person is more susceptible to obeying authority figures and show extreme respect for them. - measured using the F-scale
• adornos research into authoritarian personality: 2000 middle class whit Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards ethnic groups - measured using F-scale. found those who scored high on the F-scale were extremely conscious of status and had extreme respect to those with high status
• individuals tend to develop an an Authoritarian personality due to experiencing overly strict/critical parenting and conditional love in childhood. Adorno argues that these childhood experiences cause resentment which the child cannot directly express to their parents, so their fears are displaced onto those who they view as weaker, which explains the hatred to socially inferior groups
• research support for authoritarian personality- Elms & Milgram interviewed a small sample of people that participated in the original shock study who were fully obedient. these participants scored higher on the F-scale than a sample of disobedient participants - showing that obedient people may show features of authoritarianism. HOWEVER, they also found that a lot of obedient participants had qualities that were unusual for Authoritarians - may not be a valid explanation
• social support- the presence of people who resist pressures to obey/conform may help others to do the same - acting as models to show how resistance to social influence is possible
• example of social support for conformity - Asch's study when the confederate doesn't conform provides social support for the naive participant to also not conform
• example of social support for obedience - Milgrams variation, when the rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the genuine participant was accompanied by a disobedient confederate
• Rotter proposed 'locus of control' as an explanation for resistance to social influence. some people have an internal loc believing that everything that happens is controlled by themselves. some people have an external locus of control where they believe everything is controlled by external factors such as luck or fate
• people with a high internal locus of control are more likely to resist social influence. this is because they base their decisions on their own beliefs rather than what those around them are doing
• strength of social support - Albrecht et al found that when social support (older mentor) was provided to teen mothers they were more likely to resist pressures to smoke - showing SS can help young people to resist pressures