Obedience

• Define Obedience?

  A form of social influence in which an individual acts due to a direct order from authority
• Milgram AO1- procedure + findings

  -40 American Men given role of either teacher or learner 

  -fixed roles confederate was Mr Wallace

  -told to give shocks to learner for wrong answers, going up by 15V to 450

  -Ppt given 45V for realism

  -no one stopped before 300V

  -65% went to 450V
• Milgram's variations- uniform, proximity, location

  uniform- no uniform= dropped to 20%

  proximity- over the phone= dropped to 40%

  location- when in a run down office block= dropped to 47.5%
• -lacks generalisability 

  -lacks internal validity

  -ethical issues

  HOWEVER- ppts met Mr Wallace and were debriefed

  -Bickman 1973 research support
• Legitimacy Of Authority + A Weakness

  -People have authority positions because they are entrusted by society 

  -we are more likely to obey those who have social power

  -can't explain all disobedience
• The Authoritarian Personality-origins, characteristics, F-Scale

  -those who experienced conditional love feel hostility towards parents which is displaced onto those they view are "lower" socially"

  -they are obedient towards authority

  -F- scale measures level of fascism, those who score higher are more likely to have an AP 
• AP Evaluation

  -Research Support- interviewed Milgram's ppts, those who were more obedient felt hostility towards parents and also scored high on the F scale

  -Response Bias (all questions worded in a similar way)

  -Political Bias
• Define Agentic State/Shift

  -Situational Explanation of Obedience

  -Autonomous State- person takes responsibility

  -Agentic State-shifts the blame and "follows" orders
• Agentic State Evaluation

  -Research support- ppts continued when reassured that experimenter was to take responsibility

  -Does not fully explain obedience
• Social Support

  -conformity less likely when someone breaks unanimity

  -obedience less likely with dissenter- Milgram's experiment 65%-10%

  -Allen + Levine 1971, Asch experiment with confederate with bad eyesight, conformity was 36%
• Locus of Control

  -Rotter 1966

  -External- fate + luck 

  -Internal = self responsibility

  -Internal LOC more likely to resist

  -Holland 1967, internal LOC 37% did not go to 450V

  -Twenge et al (2004), young Americans had external LOC but more likely to resist