Factors effecting obedience Flashcards
(12 cards)
What are the 4 factors?
Situational, personality, gender and culture
What are the 4 situational factors?
Momentum of compliance, proximity, status of authority figure or personal responsibility
What is momentum of compliance?
Where the ppt feels it is their duty to continue the experiment once they have started it
What is proximity?
The closer the authority figure, the higher the obedience
What is status of authority figure?
Higher obedience if instructions given by legitimate authority figure
What is personal responsibility?
More obedient if they feel they are not responsible for what happened to the learner
What are the personality factors?
Locus of control and authoritarian personality
What is locus of control?
Rotter:
- Internal locus of control - feel personally responsible and are less influenced by others
- External locus of control - blame external factors for what happens in their life and behaviour is out of their control
What is an authoritarian personality?
Adorno:
More likely to be obedient with this personality type - have respect for authority and believe in a social hierarchy
Milgram and Elms - compared 20 obedient and 20 defiant ppts in his experiments and found that the more obedient ppts scored higher on the F scale -
How does gender impact obedience?
Milgram used mostly males in his studies, so conducted an experiment with females - they were just as obedient as the males despite being stereotyped as more compliant - anxiety throughout was much higher
What is a collectivist culture?
Acts as a collective group - e.g China
What is an individualistic culture?
Behave more individually - e.g America or Britain
