individual diff + obedience

• personality

  • Locus of control [Rotter 1966] 
  • Internal -> responsible for own actions + less influenced  by others
  • External -> behavior is beyond their control and are influenced by external factors such as fate / luck -> more influenced by others
  • Consistent w/ milgram's findings -> obedient people [ external LoC ] + believe they are not responsible for their actions
• Empathy - Burger (2009)

  • High levels of empathy -> less likely to harm another | more likely to rebel and protest BUT NOT less obedient
• Gender

  • Males and females are virtually identical when it comes to the levels of obedience - Milgram , Burger , Blass

   

  • H/e , Kilham + Mann (1974) -> Milgram replication in Aus. using Australian students -> found males to be more compliant
  • This could depend on the gender combo when it comes to the learner, and learner + experimenter gender combo  [ in this study women ordered by male to shock another women so women may have sided with victim instead of shocking -> in group favoritism [overruling obedience to authority]
• Culture

  • Cultural variables include things like:
  • Deference: how important is it to show respect to people in authority and follow leaders?
  • Individualism: how important is it to be an individual or to be a part of the group?
  • Justice: how important is it for people to do as they promised and get what they deserve?
  • Shame: how important is it to "save face" in the presence of other people and not look bad?
• Theodore Adorno et al (1950) devised the F-Scale [Fascism scale] to measure authoritarian personality.
• Authoritarian personalities respect authority figures but also delight in being an authority figure: they obey their superiors without question, but they bully and oppress their followers in turn.
• Adorno suggests that people with Authoritarian Personalities are drawn to beliefs like Nazism and tend to get promoted quickly in Nazi-style organizations.
• • Individualistic culture - behave more independently and resist conformity
  • Collectivistic - behave as a collective group based on interdependency  -> cooperation and  compliance are important for stability

   

  Assume that collectivistic cultures are more obedient
• Milgram and Elms (1966) compared the F scale scores of 20 of the most obedient participants and 20 of the most disobedient participants from across the first four of Milgram's experiments.
• Obedient participants have higher F-Scale scores, giving more shocks and holding the shock buttons down longer.