Obedience

• Obedience - to follow the rules and orders of a superior person or group.
• Milgram did an experiment based on obedience. He asked 40 male participants to carry out an experiment on a confederate.
• Three situational variables affect obedience; Location, Proximity & Uniform. Through Milgram's study, it was found that participants are more likely to be obedient to an individual in a white lab coat than an individual in everyday wear.
• Resistance to social influence refers to the tendency to resist the influence of others. There are two reasons; Social support & Locus of Control.
• Social support refers to the idea of the individual refusing to conform due to the others around them supporting their statement of belief. Those without this support are more susceptible to social influence.
• Locus of control refers to whether an individual believes they have control over these events or external factors that have determined these events.
• An individual with a high internal locus of control thinks they have control over every event in their life and are more likely to resist to social influence.
• A person with a high external locus of control is more likely to be a risk taker and less likely to be conformed. They believe that everything happens because of outside forces, making them less resilient to social influence.