Situational Variables

• What are the three situational variables effecting obedience?

  • Proximity
  • Location
  • Uniform
• How does proximity affect obedience?

  • Close proximity - obedience decreases
  • When teacher and learner were in the same room obedience rate dropped from 65% to 40%
  • In the touch proximity variation (teacher forcing learners hand onto a shock plate) obedience rate was 30%
• What was the rate of obedience in the remote instruction variation?

  20.5%
• Why does obedience decrease when proximity increases?

  People aren’t able to distance themselves from the consequences of their actions when in close proximity
• How does location affect obedience?

  The prestige of the setting can cause obedience to increase or decrease
• What percentage of people were obedient in the location study?

  47.5% in a run down building, compared to Yale university in Milgram's experiment
• Why does change due to location?

  Obedience is higher in legitimate location and one which has authority
• How does uniform affect obedience?

  Uniform is a strong symbol of legitimate authority.
• What were the results for the uniform variation?

  In baseline experimenter wore grey lab coat, his role was taken by an ‘ordinary member of the public‘ in normal clothes, obedience fell to 20%
• How did Bickman investigate situational variables?

  • He had confederates dress in three different uniforms - civilian, milkman and guard, and issued demands, e.g. picking up some rubbish.
  • People were more likely to obey the guard
• Strength of Situational Variables:

  • Cross-cultural replications
  • Dutch Ps ordered to say stressful things to interviewee, decreased proximity led to decreased obedience (Meeus and Raaijmakers)

  COUNTERPOINT:

  • But most studies in countries similar to US, so not generalisable (Smith and Bond)
• Limitation of Situational Variables:

  • Low Internal Validity
  • Some of Milgram's procedures in the variations were not especially contrived, so not genuine obedience (Orne and Holland)
• Limitation of Situational Variables:

  • The danger of situational perspective
  • Gives obedience alibi for destructive behaviour (Mandel)