Theories of obedience

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Created by
Sumayaa Amin

Cards (18)

  • Agency theory
    AO1: We have evolved to include the tendency to obey for social order
  • Agency theory
    AO1: autonomous state - your actions are voluntary, you take responsibility for them
  • Agency theory
    AO1: agentic state - relieves you of moral strain, responsibility is shifted to an authority figure
  • Agency theory
    AO1: moral strain - distressing emotions felt when going against your own morals
  • Agency theory
    AO1: we act in an agentic state because of the socialisation process, told to obey authority from young
  • Agency theory
    AO3: support from Milgram - 65% that obeyed must have been acting in an agentic state where responsiblity was shifted to experimenter
  • Agency theory
    AO3: reductionist - focuses on why we obey and ignore individual differences such as an authoritarian personality
  • Agency theory
    AO3: low validity - cant measure or see shift from autonomous state into agentic state
  • Agency theory
    AO3: rwp - can explain why individuals in the Stanford experiment obeyed
  • Agency theory
    AO3: Alternative theory - social impact theory which considers different factors that affect obedience levels
  • Social Impact Theory
    AO1: Humans are greatly impacted by others
  • Social Impact Theory
    AO1: Impact is determined by these social forces - strength = age, status, immediacy = proximity, distance, number of sources = number of sources compared to targets
  • Social Impact Theory
    AO1: the greater the SIN, the lesser the impact
  • Social Impact Theory
    AO1: division of impact = the more targets, the less the impact of SIN
  • Social Impact Theory
    AO3: Supporting study - Milgram 63, PPs obeyed due to the presence of experimenter in the room, he was also wearing a lab coat (immediacy, strength)
  • Social Impact Theory
    AO3: Supporting study - Milgram 7, drop in obedience to 22.5% because immediacy was low
  • Social Impact Theory
    AO3: Holistic - considers different factors that affect levels of obedience
  • Social Impact Theory
    AO3: Reductionist - doesnt take into account moral strain, simplifies behaviour when it is more complex