Obedience

• Agentic state is when a person believes that someone else will take responsibility for their actions. A person shifting from an autonomous state (taking responsibility for their actions) to an agentic state it is called an agentic shift.
• Agency theory is that people are more likely to obey when they are in an agentic state as they don't believe they will suffer any consequences (belief that they are acting on behalf of their agent).
• Legitimacy of authority describes how credible a figure of authority is, for example, people are more likely to obey a person if they are seen as morally right/good and legitimate (law abiding or legally based). In Milgram's study, participants saw the experimenter as legitimate as they knew he was a scientist, therefore likely to be knowledgeable and responsible.
• Situational factors include the appearance of the authority figure, location of experiment, and the presence of others.
• Explanations for situational factors:

  • More likely to obey someone in uniform as it gives them a higher status and greater sense of legitimacy. Obedience rates were higher when experimenter wore a lab coat as opposed to casual. BUT demand characteristics were evident in this condition with Milgram admitting many participants could see through this deception.
• Explanations for situational factors:

  • More likely to obey someone in a location linked to a higher status and legitimacy. Milgram's study was conducted at a prestigious university (Yale) so obedience rates were higher. This is because the prestigious nature of location demands obedience, as well as potentially increasing the trust they place in the researcher.
• Explanations for situational factors:

  • More likely to obey when they are less able to see the negative consequences of their actions, and are in close proximity to the authority figure. This is because the pressure to obey is increased; in Milgram's study, obedience was higher when the experimenter was in the same room (62.5%) as opposed to being in a different room (20.5%).
• Strength of the agency theory and legitimacy of authority:

  • Both theories can explain real-life examples of obedience towards destructive authority figures. Kilham and Mann put forward the example of the My Lai Massacre where American soldiers travelled through Vietnamese villages and murdered civilians. Soldiers didn't take responsibility for their actions and shifted the blame to their generals as they were just 'obeying orders'.
• Milgram's shock study (1963):

  • Participants - 40 male volunteers (randomly selected).
  • Procedure - Participant given the role of ‘teacher’ and a confederate given the role of ‘learner’ (random allocation). Participant asked the confederate a series of questions. A wrong / no answer = participant had to give an electric shock. Shocks increased by 15 volts at a time (300V to 450V, where 330V was marked as ‘lethal’).
• Milgram's shock study (1963):

  • Findings - All participants went up to 300V. 65% went up to 450V. No participants stopped below 300V, whilst only 12.5% stopped at 300V, showing that the majority of participants were prepared to give lethal electric shocks to a confederate.
• Factors affecting obedience:

  • Proximity - Participants obeyed more when the experimenter was in the same room (62.5%). This was reduced to 40% when they were in separate rooms, and reduced to a further 30% in the touch proximity condition (where the experimenter forcibly placed the participant’s hand on the electric plate).
• Factors affecting obedience

  • Location - Participants obeyed more when the study was conducted at a prestigious university (i.e. Yale). This is because the prestige of such a location demands obedience and also may increase the trust that the participant places in the researcher and their experiments.
• Factors affecting obedience:

  • Uniform - Participants obeyed more when the experimenter wore a lab coat. A person is more likely to obey someone wearing a uniform as it gives them a higher status and a greater sense of legitimacy. Obedience was much higher when the experimenter wore a lab coat as opposed to normal clothes. However, demand characteristics were particularly evident in this condition, with even Milgram admitting that many participants could see through this deception.
• Strength's of Milgram's study

  • Debriefing - Participants were thoroughly debriefed on the real aims of the study, in an attempt to deal with the ethical breach of the guideline of protection from deception and the possibility to give informed consent. In a follow up study conducted a year later, 84% of participants were glad they were part of the study and 74% felt as if they learned something. This suggests that the study left little or no permanent or long-term psychological harm on participants.
• Strength of Milgram's study:

  • Real life applications — Research opened our eyes to the problem of obedience and so may reduce future obedience in response to destructive authority figures (e.g. obedience has resulted in negative social change, as seen in Nazi Germany).
• Strength of Milgram's study:

  • High internal validity — Gina Perry reviewed the interview tapes and found that a significant number of participants raised questions about the legitimacy of the electric shocks. BUT quantitative data gathered by Milgram suggested that 70% of participants believed that the shocks were real - these findings appear plausible when considering that 100% of the females used in Sheridan and King’s study administered real electric shocks to puppies. This suggests that although the findings were certainly surprising, they were also likely to be accurate.
• Strength of Milgram's study:

  • Highly replicable – Procedure has been repeated all over the world, where consistent and similar obedience levels have been found. For example, in a replication of Milgram’s study using the TV pseudonym of Le Jeu de la Mort, researchers found that 85% of participants were willing to give lethal electric shocks to an unconscious man (confederate), whilst being cheered on by a presenter and a TV audience. Such replication increases the reliability of the findings.
• Strength of Milgram's study:

  • Supporting evidence – Hofling et al (1966) observed the behaviour of doctors and nurses in a natural experiment (covert observation). The researchers found that 95% of nurses in a hospital obeyed a doctor (confederate) over the phone to increase the dosage of a patient’s medicine to double what is advised on the bottle. This suggests that ‘everyday’ individuals are still susceptible to obeying destructive authority figures.
• Limitations of Milgram's study:

  • Ethical issues - Deception, so informed consent could not be obtained. This was justified by the aim of avoiding demand characteristics (where participants change their behaviour in response to knowing that they are being observed).
  • Psychological harm - Patients showed signs of psychological and physiological distress (trembling, sweating and nervous laughter). Such findings were replicated in the Jeu de la Mort study, showing that these results were not valid due to participant variables/differences.
• Limitation of Milgram's study:

  • Socially sensitive issue – Milgram’s findings suggest that those who are responsible for killing innocent people can be excused because it is not their personality that made them do this, but it is because of the situation that they were in and the fact that it is difficult to disobey – some may strongly disagree with this, and especially the judicial system, where individuals are expected to take moral responsibility for their actions.
• Limitation of Milgram's study:

  • Lack of internal validity – The experiment may have been about trust rather than about obedience because the experiment was held at Yale University. Therefore, the participants may have trusted that nothing serious would happen to the confederate, especially considering the immense prestige of the location. Also when the experiment was replicated in a run-down office, obedience decreased to 20.5%. This suggests that the original study did not investigate what it aimed to investigate.
• Limitation of Milgram's study:

  • Lacks mundane realism – Tasks given to participants are not like those we would encounter in real life (e.g. shooting somebody in the face is different from flicking a switch), meaning that the methodology lacks mundane realism, producing results which are low in ecological validity.