Factors Affecting Obedience and Dissent: Individual Differences Flashcards

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1
Q

Define Dissent

A

Opinions that differ from those held by others. Refusing to carry out orders.

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2
Q

Define Resistance

A

Ability to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or to obey authority. Influenced by situational and personality.

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3
Q

Define Personality

A

An individuals characteristic, coherent and relatively stable set of behaviours, attitudes, interests and capabilities. These characteristics can predict future behaviour.

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4
Q

Define Gender

A

A persons sense of male or femaleness, including attitudes/behaviour of that gender.

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5
Q

The Authoritarian Personality

A

Adorno et al. explained high levels of obedience in terms of a persons disposition and called this the authoritarian personality.

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6
Q

The Authoritarian Personality - What did Adorno Believe?

A

A harsh style of parenting leads children to develop personality traits like toughness, destructiveness and cynicism - all were given the term ‘authoritarianism’.

He measured this using the F-Scale.

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7
Q

F-Scale

A

A more permissive style of parenting, centred around unconditional love might mean that children grow into adults who score low on the scale and more likely to show resistance and defy destructive orders.

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8
Q

Internal Locus of Control

A

Rotter 1966 proposed this idea that some people tend towards an internal LOC, meaning they take greater responsibility for their actions as they believe they are in control of what they do and what happens to them.

More likely to show dissent and defy orders.

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9
Q

External LOC

A

Take less responsibility for their actions and feel what happens to them is governed by other people and by chance factors.

More likely to be obedient.

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10
Q

Frederick Miller (1975) LOC

A

Demonstrated LOCs in a study where a high or low status experimenter told PP to grasp live electric wires.

Externals obeyed high status experimenter more than low status.

Internals unaffected by status.

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11
Q

Women are more obedient than men

A

Sheridan’s and King’s PP were ordered to give real electric shocks to a live puppy.

found that 100% of females were fully obedient, compared to 54% of males.

Ladies showed distress, crying throughout study.

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12
Q

Men are more obedient than women

A

Kilham and Mann replicated Milgram’s study in Australia and found a low obedience rate of 28%.

40% of males were obedient, 16% of females were obedient.

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13
Q

Moral Reasoning: Males

A

Gilligan suggested that moral decision making is guided by differing principles in men and women. The ethic of justice is the principle more commonly seen in males and pertains to values of equality and fairness and requires a detached outlook to avoid bias.

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14
Q

Moral Reasoning: Females

A

Gilligan claimed that females use the ethic of care to guide decision making. This principal relates to interpersonal relationships and supporting those in need.

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15
Q

Moral Reasoning: Destructive Obedience

A

Might expect males to be more obedient due to their feelings of obligation to an authority figure, whereas females may be less obedient due to their desire to support the person being harmed.

Milgram’s study showed that men swayed more to the scientific goals whereas females may have been more concerned about the learner.

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16
Q

Support for Authoritarianism

A

Elms and Milgram used the F-Scale with participants from Milgram’s studies, testing 20 fully obedient PP and 20 who were not.

Obedient PP scored higher and reported other characteristics of the authoritarian personality like less close to father.

Suggests obedience is related to authoritarianism

17
Q

Competing

A

Cannot claim there is a casual relationship between childhood experiences and authoritarianism/obedience as these are correlations.

Other factors may be involved like O and A may be caused by a lower level of education.

18
Q

Weakness of LOC

A

In Shurz’s study, Austrian PP were instructed to give painful doses of ultrasound to a female student.

Those fully obedient did not differ sig from those PP who resisted in terms of their scores on a questionnaire measuring LOC

Personality may have little impact on obedience.

19
Q

Application Personality

A

Applied to HR:
Some jobs require a level of obedience; organisations that require employees to follow procedures may prefer people who are obedient.

HR can use a scale assessing LOC. Resulting in more accurate matching of people to jobs, greater productivity.

20
Q

Strength Gilligan

A

Support from qualitative research.
Male and female PP were interviewed about real life moral dilemmas and although most PP used both ethic of justice and care in their reasoning, men preferred a justice orientation and women, care.

Suggests Important gender differences in moral orientations.

This may affect decision making in situations with destructive obedience.

21
Q

Weakness Gilligan

A

Many studies find no gender differences.

Blass summarised findings of 9 Milgram style studies that included male and female PP. Only 1 case had a sig difference in observed levels of obedience between men and women.

Suggests gender likely does not affect obedience.