Factors Affecting Obedience Flashcards
(21 cards)
Gender and obedience- Sheridan and king (1972)
Conducted a unique Milgram-type study using a puppet as the ‘learner’.
Even though the puppy was visible to the subjects and enough actual sahock was delivered to cause the puppy to yelp and jump in pain.
100% of the female subjects were fully obedient while only 54% of the males were obedient.
Gender and obedience- kilham and Mann (1974)
When administering shocks, obedience was 40% for males and 16% for females.
When the participant gave the order to someone else to administer the shock, obedience was 68% for males and 40% for females suggesting that the females were less obedience than the males.
Disadvantages of research for gender and obedience
Lack of external realisability in this area must be taken into account. There might be gender differences but research conclusions are not clear.
Lack of ecological validity in research that looks into gender as its less applicable to real world settings and events.
Define culture
The collective beliefs, attitude ad social norms of a group of people
Behaviours and attitudess are passed through generations and are typically resisted to damage over time.
Two types of cultures
Individualistic
Collectivist
What do individualistic cultures tend to do?
Behave more independently and resist conformity or compliance.
What do collectivist cultures tend to do?
What can we assume from this?
Behave as a collective group based on interdependence, meaning that cooperation and compliance is importat for the stability of the group.
We can assume from this that collective cultures ar more likely to be obedient
Define ‘interdependence’
When a group relies on everyone in the group.
How would these different types of cultures have different effects on obedient and dissent?
Individualistic cultures would be less likely to obey
Culture and obedience- Al-Zahrani and Kaplowitz
What type of cultures tend is this?
Found Saudis to self-report more in-group favouritism and negative out group bias
-see themselves as more talented and the outgroup to only do well due to tactics and foul play.
Collectivist culture
What did Kleugel find collectivist cultures tend to be associated with?
Greater tolerance and lower racism
What do comparisons between cultures not support?
Ther idea that one type of cultures is more prejudiced than another
Culture and obedience- Shana’s and Yahya
Found that females were more visibly anxious.
Asked children 6-16 in Jordan to give shocks to other children.
Experimenter was female.
73% gave maximum shock to same gender peers (higher than milgram)
Shows that children are obedient
Culture and obedience- Katz and Braly
Conducted a questionnaire on students attending Princeton uni to investigate national stereotypes of Americans about other cultures.
Gave students a list of ethnic groups-had to pick 5-6 traits of a 84 personality trait list.
Found that majority of American students classified African Americans as superstitious and ignorant and Jews as shrewd.
However they may have responded in a socially desirable way at the time, there is no identification that these were actually their personal beliefs.
Gradual commitment- situational factors by milgram
Link to milgram
Once a person had complied with the requests, they find it increasingly difficult to reduce to carry out more serious requests.
Milgrams participants were encourages to obey the experimenter by the gradual steps they were asked to take.
(First step was making the shock increase by 15 each time, makes increase seem less drastic)
Buffers-situational factors by milgram
Link to milgram
Buffers are something that prevents you from seeing the consequence of your action.
As you cannot see the consequence of obedient behavior you’re more likely to carry out the behaviour without hesitation
Milgram- when the tec her and learn we were in different rooms, basic obedience rate was 65%. However when they were in the same room, it dropped to 40%
-can be explained in terms of loss of responsibility
Uniform-situational factors by milgram
Link to milgram
Different uniforms might make people obey differently
Experimenter wore white lab coat, indicating to participants that he possessed a scientific expertise, which may increase authority.
Ordinary man who appeared to be another participant took over experiment rate and came up with the idea of increasing shock intensity every time the learner made a mistake. Dramatic affect on participants behaviour-20% exhibited total obedience
Location-situational factors by milgram
Link to milgram
If authority figure is ordering something at a nicer, done up place, people ar more likely to obey.
Research usually carried out in elegant interaction lab at Yale which gave experimenter social power as legitimate authority figure.
Carried it out in modest office in Bridgeport. Participants thought it was for research associates Bridgeport.
47.5% of participants exhibited total obedience which is somewhat ess than the percentage showing total obedience under standard conditions (65%)
Proximity- situational factors by milgram
The closeness of the authority figure can have an affect on obedience. Physical or relationship wise.
Milgrtsam argues this at obedience to authority could be increased by increasing the proximity or closeness of the participant to the learner. The basic idea was that participants would be more willing to administer severe electric shocks if the learners presence was less absent. Important distribution between physical proximity and psychological proximity.
Physical proximity-situational factors by milgram
How aware the participant is of learners position.
We can see the importance of proximity across situations used by milgram
