Factors affecting obedience and dissent: Individual differences Flashcards
(18 cards)
What is dissent?
Having opinions that differ from those held by others. In relation to obedience it means refusing to carry out orders (disobedience).
What is resistance?
The ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or to obey authority. This ability to withstand social pressue is influences by both situational and dispositional (personality) factors.
What is personality?
An individual’s characteristic, coherent and relatively stable set of behaviours, attitudes, interests and capabilities. These characteristics are useful for predicting future behaviour
What is gender?
A person’s sense of their maleness and femaleness including attitudes and behaviour of that gender
What is authoritarian personality?
You are more likely to show resistance and defy what they perceive to be destructive orders
Where does Adorno beleive an authoritarian personality comes from?
Harsh style of parenting
How do you measure if you have an authoritarian personality?
F-scale
What does it mean when people have a strong internal locus of control?
They take greater responibility for their actions as they believe they are in control of what they do and what happens to them.
What does it mean when people have a strong external locus of control?
They take less responsibility for their actions and feel that what happens to them is governed by other people and by chance factors
What did Frederick Miller demonstrate in interal and external LOC?
Externals obeyed the high status experiment more than the low status experiment, while internals were unaffected by status
What study demonstrates that women are more obedient than men?
Sheridan and Kings
Ppts were ordered to give shocks to a live puppy.
100% of females were obedient
54% of males were obedient
However women showed more distress
What study demonstrates that men are more obedient than women?
Kilham and Mann replicated Milgram’s study in Australia and found an unusually low obedience rate of just 28%.
In terms of gender 40% of males were fully obedient whereas this was true of just 16% of the females.
What did Elms and Milgram discover when using the F-scale on 20 fully obedient ppts and 20 who were not in Milgram’s study?
Obedient ppts scored higher on the F-scale and reported other characteristics of authoritarian personality, such as less closeness to their fathers
What is a weakness of the LOC explanation according to Grete Schurz?
In a study similar to Milgram , Austrian ppts were instructed to give painful doses of ultrasound to a female student. Those ppts who were fully obedient did not differ significantly from those ppts who resisted in terms of their scores on a questionnaire measuring LOC.
What application does using a scale assessing LOC have ?
In the world of work .Organisation that require employees to follow procedures may prefer people who are obedient and so may usea scale assessing LOC
What does Blass say about the role of gender on obedience?
In all but one case there was no significant difference in the observed levels of obedience between men and women.
What does Gilligan suggest about moral decision making between males and females?
Suggest that moral decision making is guided by differeing principles in men and women. The “ethic of justiice” is the principle more common seen in males and this pertains to values of wquality and fairness and requires a detached outlook to avoid bias. In contrast, Gilligan claimedd that females use the “ethic of care” to make their decision making. This principle relates to interpersonal relationships and nurturing and supporting those in need.W
What support is there fore Gilligan’s moral reasoning?
Male and female ppts were interviewed about real life moral dilemmas and although most ppts used both the ethic of justice and care in their moral reasoining, overall men favoured a justice orientation and women favoured a care orientation. These gender differences were highly significant. This suggests that there are quite important gender differences in moral orientations which may well affect decision making in situations relating to destructive obedience.
