Explanations for obedience

• 1= Milgram carried out an experiment testing obedience to authority among 40 male volunteers.
• 2= The participants were always assigned the role of teacher who had to administer shocks of increasing volts to a confederate learner in another room when they answered a question wrong.
• 3= Participants did not know until the end that the shocks were not real and the learners' protests were pre-recorded
• 4= The results showed that none of the participants stopped before 300 volts and 65% administered the lethal shock.
• Milgram concluded that ordinary people will obey authority even if it means acting against their conscience.
• Milgram identified several situational factors that affect rates of obedience and carried out variations of the experiment to test these effects in comparison to the original study.
• Location- The influence of location on obedience was shown In a variation of Milgram's study obedience rates dropped from 65% to 48% When the study moved from Yale university to a set of run down office blocks.
• Location- Obedience dropped because the legitimacy of the authority was reduced making it harder for participants to diffuse responsibility.
• proximity 1- In a variation of the study where the learner was in the same room as the teacher only 40% of participants gave the maximum shock, compared to 65% in the original study
• Proximity 2- And further dropped to 30% when the participant had to put the learner's hand onto the shock plate. This is because proximity made the learners' suffering harder to ignore as the consequences of the shocks became more apparent.
• Obedience can be affected by the legitimacy of the authority figure instructing you.
• Legitimacy of authority- Societies are structured in a hierarchical way in which some e.g police officers have more social power than others. We are brought up to see these as legitimate authority figures who have the right to tell us what to do.
• Obedience is increased when the individual is wearing uniform, because it usually implies knowledge or comes with social power.
• Advantages of legitimacy of authority- This is supported by variations of milgram's study Because the experimenters wore white lab coats in the original study it increased the legitimacy of authority, this is because we are socialised to obey people in uniform e.g. teachers or police.
• Another advantage that supports legitimacy of authority- Brickman's field experiment showed that 92% of pedestrians obeyed an order from a researcher to give a stranger money for a parking metre when the researcher was dressed as a guard. However this dropped to 49% when he was dressed in normal clothes. This experiment is more ecologically valid than milgrams as it takes place in the real world, therefore it better generalises to real life obedience, providing more valid evidence to support the importance of uniform on obedience.
• Agency theory Milgram suggested people can act on two levels, an autonomous level and an agentic level.
• The autonomous level is when the individual believes they are responsible for their own actions.
• The autonomous level is when the individual believes they are responsible for their own actions.
• The agentic level is when they see themselves as an agent of others, who are responsible for their behaviours.
• i.e. they are in an agentic state- As a result the legitimate authority figure replaces the individual's personal responsibilities for their actions. The person is seen as responsible for the consequences of the agent's actions, this is called the diffusion of responsibility.
• evidence that supports agency theory- This is shown in milgram's experiment Many had concerns about giving the shocks and needed reassurance that they were not responsible for any problems, i.e this shows the diffusion of responsibility onto a legitimate authority figure.
• evidence that supports agency theory- Shown in hoflings study 21 out of 22 nurses were prepared to administer a lethal dose of drugs when ordered to by a confederate doctor with more authority. However, other studies have challenged these findings
• evidence that supports agency theory- Obedience rose when only had to read out the shocks In a variation of milgram's study obedience rose from 65% - 92.5% because participants were able to shift responsibility onto a partner
• The authoritarian personality This theory is a dispositional (personality) based explanation of obedience. He proposed that strict parents cause children to be socialised to obey authority unquestioningly. Because they learn strict obedience from their parents
• The authoritarian personality- He also believed that strict parenting results in prejudice: - Strict parenting causes the child to feel constrained which then leads to aggression. - But the child is afraid if they show parents this aggression they'll be disciplined so they direct it at weak individuals e.g peers at school in the form of bullying.
• evidence that supports authoritian personality disorder- Elms and Milgram found that participants with more authoritarian traits gave willing “bigger” and longer lasting shocks in the experiment. But Milgram found that situational factors e.g proximity still has a much bigger effect on obedience.