Obedience

• What is obedience? 


  A form of social influence where an individual complies with instructions or orders from an authority figure.
• What was Milgram's sample and aim?

  • 40 male volunteers who were randomly selected, believed the study was about memory
  • To observe whether people would obey a destructive authority figure when told to harm another person
• What was Milgram's procedure?

  • Ppt. had the role of 'teacher' and confederate was the 'learner'
  • Teacher asked learner questions, if learner answered incorrectly or not at all they had to be given an electric shock ranging from 300-450 volts (which ppts. believed were real)
  • Experimenter (researcher) had to order the participant to administer the shock when they refused, increasing in terms of demandingness
• What were Milgram's findings?

  • All 40 participants went up to 300 volts, only 12.5% stopped here
  • 65% went up to 450V
  • Shows that the vast majority of participants were prepared to administer lethal electric shocks
• How does Milgram's study have high reliability?

  • Due to having a properly standardised procedure, the study has been replicated across the world where consistent results have been found
  • French documentary 'Le Jeu de la Mort' featured a game show where ppts. were paid to give fake electric shocks to actors and 80% delivered the maximum shock of 460V
  • Supports Milgram's original findings demonstrating that they were not just due to special circumstances
• How does Milgram's study have high external validity?

  • Hofling et al covertly observed doctors and nurses in a natural experiment
  • Found 95% of nurses obeyed a confederate doctor over the phone to increase a patient's dosage of medicine to DOUBLE what the bottle advises
  • Shows 'everyday' individuals are still susceptible to obeying destructive authority figures
• What are the ethical issues of Milgram's experiment?

  • Deception as participants were told the study was about memory - lack of fully informed consent
  • Participants showed signs of psychological and physiological distress like trembling and sweating
  • These were also found in Jeu de la Mort study showing these results were due to faulty procedures
• How does Milgram's experiment lack internal and ecological validity?

  • Prestigious Yale University setting may have led to participants trusting that nothing would happen to the confederate - when replicated in a run-down office obedience decreased to 47.5%. Study did not investigate its aims, could have been trust not obedience
  • Tasks given were not similar to real-life - areas of interest with this study like Nazi soldiers killing innocent Jews is nowhere near flicking a switch meaning the study lacks mundane realism
• How did Milgram investigate proximity as a factor affecting obedience?

  • When teacher and learner were in the same room, obedience dropped from 62.5% to 40%
  • Shows that decreased proximity allows people to psychologically distance themselves from their actions and facing consequences
• How did Milgram investigate location as a factor affecting obedience?

  • Obedience dropped to 47.5% when experiment was conducted in a run-down office block as opposed to the prestigious Yale University
  • Ppts. were more obedient in the prestigious setting because they perceived it as legitimate and authoritative
• How did Milgram investigate uniform as a factor affecting obedience?

  • Obedience dropped to 20% when an experimenter wore everyday clothes rather than an experimenter who wore a lab coat as a symbol of authority
  • Uniforms are widely considered symbols of authority and so encourage obedience - makes us believe their authority is legitimate
• What is the authoritarian personality as a dispositional explanation for obedience?

  • Adorno argued that these people show extreme respect and submissiveness to authority
  • Believe that society needs strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values
  • Show contempt for those with inferior social statuses
  • Have an absolutist 'fixed' cognitive style of thinking
  • People with this trait are more likely to obey
  • Can be measured using the F-scale rating agreement with certain statements
• What are the origins of the authoritarian personality?

  • Forms in childhood (psychodynamic theory) as a result of harsh parenting styles featuring strict discipline, impossibly high standards and severe over-criticism - parents give conditional love based on child's behaviour
  • Leads to resentment and hostility in a child who displaces this anger onto seemingly 'inferior' others who they think are weaker (scapegoating)
• What was Adorno et al.'s research?

  • Used the F-scale to study white Americans unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic groups
  • Found that people with authoritarian leanings and scored high on the F-scale were very status-conscious and showed extreme respect to those of higher status
  • These people had very 'black and white' thinking, with fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other groups
• What is the agentic state as an explanation for obedience?

  • Belief that someone else will take responsibility for their own actions
  • Agentic shift: when someone in an autonomous state (holding accountability for their own actions) shifts to an agentic state
  • People more likely to obey in this state as they believe they are acting on behalf of an agent and won't suffer the consequences
• What is legitimacy of authority as an explanation for obedience?

  • People are more likely to obey authority figures who are seen as credible in terms of morals
  • Explains why students are more likely to listen to parents/teachers over strangers
  • Milgram's participants saw him as a knowledgeable and responsible scientist which is perhaps why obedience was high
• What is a strength of the agentic state and legitimacy of authority explanations?

  • Can successfully explain real-life examples of obedience to destructive authority figures
  • My Lai massacres - American soliders murdered civilians when invading Vietnamese villages
  • Soldiers were simply obeying orders from their Generals and shifted responsibility for their actions onto them (agentic state)
  • Authority was legitimate due to generals having high positions within the ranks - shows explanations are valid
• How is political bias a weakness of the authoritarian personality explanation?

  • F-scale measures the likeness between an individual to far-right wing fascism and ignores far left-wing authoritarianism which has much similarities like complete obedience to authority
  • Suggests Adorno's theory is not a comprehensive explanation as it doesn't account for obedience across the whole political spectrum
• How do methodological issues weaken the authoritarian personality explanation?

  • F-scale is susceptible to acquiscence bias - where respondents can receive a high score by always responding in the same way like selecting 'Agree' (Greenstein)
  • Means anyone with a response bias can be classed as having an AP which means findings lack validity