Obedience

• Milgram (1963) carried out his Study of Obedience to find out why such a high proportion of Germans obeyed Hitler's commands during the holocaust
• Milgram's Study of Obedience involved 40 male volunteers decieved into thinking they were giving shocks to another participant
• Participants played 'teacher' and had to give a shock when the 'learner' gave a wrong answer (15V-450V)
• During Milgram's study all participants continued to 300V where 12.5% then stopped, and 65% delivered the full 450V
• During Milgram's study many participants became stressed and anxious, so passed on responsibility the person of 'authority'
• Milgram's Study of Obedience had three variation: proximity, location, and uniform
• Milgram varied proximity where teacher and learner were in the same room - obedience decreased from 65-40%
• Milgram varied touch proximity where teacher had to force learner's hand down onto the shock plate - obedience decreased to 30%
• Milgram used remote instruction where experimentor gave instructions to teacher over the telephone - obedience decreased to 20.5%
• Milgram varied location by holding the experiment in a run-down office block rather than Yale University - obedience decreased to 47.5%
• Milgram varied uniform by swapping the lab coat scientist for an 'ordinary member of the public' - obedience decreased to 20%
• Agentic state is where somebody does not take responsibility fo their actions because they believe they are acting on behalf of an authority figure
• Evidence against agentic state: 18 nurses in a hospital in 1977 disobeyed a doctor's orders to administer an excessive drug dose (Rank and Jacobson), WWII soldiers chose to shoot civilians in Poland without being given orders
• Research support for agentic state: Experimentor reassured them they were not responsible
• Kilham and Mann (1974) investigated the cultural diferences in Legitimacy of Authority and found that when women were asked to do somthing, 12% Australians obeyed and 80% Germans obeyed
• Zimbardo (1973) investigated effects of social roles on behaviour with the Stanford Prison Experiment
• In the Stanford prison experiment 21 male student volunteers were paid $15 a day for 2 weeks (experiment only lasted 6 days)
• Prisoners wore a loose smock and cap, Guards wore mirror shades and had wooden clubs
• Guards became aggressive and used the 'divide and rule' technique to turn the prisoners against each other
• Prisoners rebelled within two days but guards retaliated with fire extinguishers
• Prisoners became depressed and anxious but were encouraged to stay in the experiment
• One prisoner went on hunger strike and guards had to force feed him and then put him in 'The Hole'
• The Stanford Prison Experiment shows that social roles heavily infuence a person's behaviour
• Volunteers were randomly assigned to the roles of either prisoner or guard
• Legitimacy of Authority is the percieved right of an authority figure to give orders which must be obeyed
• Legitimacy of Authority is a situational explanation for obedience
• A Dispositional explanation is any explanation that highlights the importance of an individual's personality
• The California F-Scale is used to measure the different components that make up the Authoritarian personality
• The Authoritarian Personality is a person who had extreme respect for authority is especially likely to to be obedient to those with power over them
• The Authoritarian personality was identidied by Adorno Et Al. (1950)
• The Authoritarian Personality is a dispositional explanation for authority
• The values of Authoritarian personality: Conformist, prejudice for socially inferior people, Dogmatic
• Authoritarian traits develop from parenting style when there is only conditional love