Explanations for Obedience Flashcards
(13 cards)
What is meant by proximity in terms of obedience?
-How aware the individuals are to the consequences of their actions in obeying or not obeying an authority figure
-‘Buffer’ is used to describe any aspect of a situation that protects people from having to confront the consequence of their actions
Link to Milgram’s research
-The learner and teacher were in separate rooms so this acted as a buffer from their consequences
-When in the same room, obedience rates dropped from 63% to 40%
-When the teacher had to force the learners hand onto a shock plate obedience rates dropped to 30%
What is meant by location in terms of obedience?
-Effects a persons authority and to what extent someone obeys
-In locations with perceived legitimacy obedience rates are higher
-In institutionalised settings obedience is the highest
Link to Milgram
-When carried out in an office obedience rates dropped from 63% to 47%
What is meant by Legitimate authority in terms of obedience?
-One suggestion is that we are obligated to those in power because we respect credentials and assume they know what they’re doing
-Legit auth is held by those who’s roles are socially deemed by society
-If the legit auth was to command a harmful or destructive act then they would need to be in a institutional structure (university, military)
Link to Milgram
-Auth conveyed by a legit researcher at a prestigious uni by a tall lab coat wearing experimenter so they looked like they knew what they were doing
What is meant by uniform in terms of obedience?
-Wearing uniforms can give the idea of added authority increasing obedience rates
-In Milgram’s study the experimenter wore a white lab coat to give them a sense of authority (was also tall)
What is the agentic state?
-Suggests people operate on 2 different levels
-The agentic state = a person sees themselves as agents of others and not responsible for their actions
-Milgram argued people just aimlessly followed others orders as they were seen as the responsible one
Link to Milgram
-When the teacher and experimenter in the same room obedience levels = 63% but when told what to do via telephone = 20% as there was no one there to take the responsibility should anything happen to the learner
What are 2 strengths?
Research support for legitimacy and agentic
-Study showed a film of Milgram’s study to students and asked them to identify the responsible one for the harm caused
-Students blamed the experimenter because of his legit auth but also cos he was a scientist
The students recognised the legit auth as the cause for obedience
Support from cultural differences
-Many studies show that other cultures react different to auth
-Milgram study replicated in Australia and found only 16% went to top voltage but Germany participants 85% went to top voltage
This shows that some cultures are different and that in the way younger children are brought up which increases the validity of this explanation
What are 2 weaknesses?
Agentic state can only account for so many situations
-Doesn’t explain why some humans didn’t obey as the agentic state suggests they would in a situation like Milgram’s
Suggests that the agentic state only accounts for some situations of obedience not all of them
some indivs may just be cruel and not agentic
-Scientists found in Milgram that some of the participants showed cruel sadistic tendencies
-Zimbardo also found this with the guards and how they rapidly became cruel towards the inmates. Without legit auth telling them to. In fact Zimbardo explicitly told the guards to not be violent
Some indivs just are inherently sadistic and cruel
What is the dispositional explanation for obedience?
-Internal explanation to obedience
what was the procedure of Adorno’s study?
-Wanted to test obedient personality
-Used 2000 middle class, white USA’s and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups using a fascism scale
What were the findings?
-People with authoritarian beliefs identified with strong people and were dismissive of the weak
-Conscious of own status and others status showed respect to those above them
-No fuzziness between people and their status and class with fixed stereotypes
-Strong positive correlation between prejudice and authoritarianism
What is the authoritarian personality?
-Especially obedient to auth figures
-Conventional values towards race, sex and sexuality
-Submissive to auth
-Hostile to inferior groups
-Everything is either right or wrong
-society needs strong powerful leaders
What is a strength of auth personality?
Support from Milgram’s study
-Obedient participants scored highly on the f scale
supporting the link between authoritarianism and obedience
-Gave higher shocks when told to
increases validity of explanation
What are 2 weaknesses?
Limited with large scale obedience
-Hard to explain majority obedience
-Pre-war Ger, millions of individuals showed obedience
Limits Adorno’s theory as not all Germans were anti-Semitic but showed it out of fear
Methodological problems with F-scale
-Based on a flawed scale
-Described as a comedy of method errors
-Every item is worded in the same direction so you can just tick every box in a straight line and get a high score
This invalidates any scores produced as there is no real method the scale uses
