explanations for obedience - social psych, situational, dispositional

Question 1

what are the 3 explanations for obedience?

Answer 1

• social psych explanations
• situational explanations
• dispositional explanations

Question 2

what are the 2 social psych expl for obedience

Answer 2

• agentic state
• legitimacy of authority

Question 3

what is agentic state?

Answer 3

• this is when a person believes that someone else will take responsibility for their own actions.
• when a person shifts from an autonomous state (the state in which a person believes they will take responsibility for their own actions) to the agentic state, it is called an agentic shift.

Question 4

how does an agentic state lead to obedience?

Answer 4

agency theory is the idea that people are more likely to obey when they are in the agentic state as they do not believe they will suffer the consequences of those actions.

this is because they believe that they are acting on behalf of their agent.

Question 5

what is legitimacy of authority?

Answer 5

• we obey because we feel obligated to, we accept people’s credentials and believe they know what they’re doing
• ingrained in us to obey these people, even when we believe it may be unethical
• uniform and location demonstrates legitimate authority (teacher/police)

Question 6

what are the 3 situational factors?

Answer 6

• location
• uniform
• proximity

Question 7

how does location lead to obedience?

Answer 7

a person is more likely to obey someone in a location linked to higher status and legitimacy

Question 8

give an example of obedience due to location (milgram)

Answer 8

Milgram’s study was conducted at a prestigious American university (Yale), and so obedience was greater than in a variation of the study, conducted in a rundown office

Question 9

how does uniform lead to obedience?

Answer 9

a person is more likely to obey someone wearing a uniform as it gives them a higher status and a greater sense of legitimacy

Question 10

give an example of obedience due to uniform (milgram)

Answer 10

it was found that obedience was much higher when the experimenter wore a lab coat as opposed to normal clothes

Question 11

how does proximity lead to obedience?

Answer 11

a person is more likely to obey when they are less able to see the negative consequences of their actions and are in closer proximity to the authority figure. this is because it
increases the pressure to obey and decreases the pressure to resist.

Question 12

give an example of obedience due to proximity (milgram)

Answer 12

in Milgram’s study, obedience was higher when the experimenter was in the same room (62.5%) as the ppt, as opposed to being in a different room and speaking over the phone i.e. the
remote instruction condition (20.5% obedience levels)

Question 13

evaluation legitimacy of authority: research support (Tarnow)

Answer 13

ID: a strength of legitimacy of authority as an exp for obedience, is that it has research support
Q: Tarnow looked at aircraft accidents in the USA, where flight crew actions were the contributing factors
EX: for example, there was an excessive dependency on the captain’s authority in over 1/2 of the accidents. one officer claimed he didn’t question the captain’s behaviour because he assumed the captain knew what he was doing
AN: this supports legitimacy of authority as it highlights how the captain’s authority overruled responsibility, due to his status. increasing the external validity of the explanation

Question 14

evaluation agentic state: conflicting evidence

Answer 14

ID: a dispositional explanation may be a better reasoning for obedience
Q: Rank and Jacobson found conflicting research when studying agentic state in nurses
EX: for example, they found that 16/18 nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to give an excessive dose of a known drug.
AN: this is a weakness as agentic state/shift cannot explain all situations, reducing external validity

Question 15

evaluation uniform: research support (Bickman)

Answer 15

ID: there is research to support the situational variable of uniform
Q: Bickman conducted research to test uniform as an explanation for obedience
EX: for example, he found that the public were more likely to obey someone and pick up litter, when an actor was dressed as a security guard, rather than a milkman or in normal clothes
AN: this is a strength as the research increases the ecological validity of uniform as a situational variable, and the credibility

Question 16

what is a dispositional explanation?

Answer 16

internal explanation i.e personality factors/individual reasons why
someone obeys

Question 17

what is the dispositional expl for obedience?

Answer 17

authoritarian personality

Question 18

who proposed authoritarian personality as a characteristic?

Answer 18

Adorno

Question 19

how did Adorno explain authoritarian personality?

Answer 19

• it is when you believe that you should completely obey or submit to an authority figure, and suppress your own beliefs
• one of the various characteristics of the authoritarian personality is that the individual is hostile to those who are of inferior status, but obedient of people with high status

Question 20

what is the authoritarian personality measured against?

Answer 20

the F-scale

Question 21

what is the F-scale?

Answer 21

requires ppt’s to rate the extent of their own agreement to certain statements, using a likert-scale

Question 22

what sample did Adorno use to test the F-scale?

Answer 22

2000 white middle class americans

Question 23

what did Adorno believe about those with authoritarian personality?

Answer 23

• Adorno believed in the psychodynamic theory i.e. that a person’s personality traits and
  attitudes as an adult stemmed from childhood influences such as from parents
• they are more likely to obey authority figures
• inflexible in their outlook, everything is either right or wrong
• they were treated harshly as children, causing them to have hostility towards their parents

Question 24

evaluation AP: support from Milgram

Answer 24

ID: a strength of AP as a dispositional explanation is that there is research support
Q: Milgram’s research supports AP as an explanation for obedience
EX: for example, he found that 20 obedient ppt’s scores significantly higher on the F-scale, compared to 20 disobedient ppt’s
AN: therefore, Milgram’s research can support AP as being a factor influencing obedience

Question 25

evaluation: limited explanation

Answer 25

ID: a weakness of AP as an explanation for obedience is that it has been criticised for being a limited explanation
Q: the authoritarian personality has little ecological validity because it cannot explain many real-life examples of mass obedience
EX: for example, it is very unlikely that the whole German population during Nazi occupation had an Authoritarian Personality, but rather many may have shared the same views of anti-semism
AN: therefore, the limited explanation of obedience can lead to the alternative explanation of social identity theory, where a person’s sense of who they are is based on group membership, reducing credibility of AP

Question 26

evaluation: biased sample

Answer 26

ID: furthermore, Adorno’s research may lack population validity
Q: he can be criticised for using a biased sample
EX: for example, his sample consisted of 2000 white middle-class americans, who are more likely to have an Authoritarian personality due to demographics and the time of the study
AN: therefore, the research lacks population validity and historical validity, so conclusions cannot be generalised to people outside the sample