obedience

Question 1

what is obedience?

Answer 1

a type of social influence where an individual complies with or follows a direct order, usually from a figure of authority

Question 2

what was Milgram actually interested in studying?

Answer 2

would people obey if the authority was destructive

this was inspired by how people obeyed the Nazis during the holocaust

Question 3

describe, in basic detail, the procedure of Milgram’s study?

Answer 3

if confederate student got a word pair answer wrong, teacher was instructed by the researcher to give an electric shock increasing intensity up to 450V (life threatening)

Question 4

what type of sampling was used in Milgram’s study?

Answer 4

volunteer

Question 5

describe the sample used in Milgram’s study?

Answer 5

40 American males so not very representative

BUT

good variety of backgrounds e.g. 40% white collar workers and 22.5% professionals

Question 6

give some quantitative data from Milgram’s original study?

Answer 6

12.5% ppt stopped at 300V
65% continued all the way to 450V (danger to life)

Question 7

give some qualitative data for the results of Milgram’s original study?

Answer 7

ppts showed signs of being under extreme stress e.g. sweating and stuttering

3 ppts had seizures

ppts were fully debriefed and assured their behaviour was normal, follow up questionnaire showed 85% said they were glad to have participated

Question 8

what can be concluded from Milgram’s study?

Answer 8

nearly everyone will obey destructive authority, even when they know it’s wrong

suggests Germans are not weak and them obeying the Nazis is ‘normal’

Question 9

how is Milgram’s study replicable?

Answer 9

Le Jeu de la Mort 2010 replicated study on a French TV show amd found 80% delivered maximum 460V shock

also shows temporal validity

Question 10

how might Milgram’s study also not be replicable?

Answer 10

ethical issues wouldn’t pass today

informed consent, right to withdraw, deception, protection from harm

this could damage reputation of psych

Question 11

how is Milgram’s sample not representative?

Answer 11

40 american men

-small sample size
-Sheridan and King found women obeyed more in a similar study
-America is also individualist country so results might not generalise

Question 12

how could it be argued that Milgram’s sample was representative?

Answer 12

good variety of backgrounds eg 40% white collar workers
22.5% professionals

Question 13

how does Milgram’s study have high internal validity?

Answer 13

lab study so high levels of control

Milgram found 70% of ppts thought shocks were real

Question 14

who argued Milgram’s study to be unrealistic?

Answer 14

Orne and Holland argue ppts will have guessed it wasn’t real and ppts just responding to demand characteristics

Question 15

what is the evidence to support that Milgram’s study has high external validity?

Answer 15

Hofling et al studied nurses on a ward and found 21/22 obeyed to give doses of a drug that would kill someone, since doctors gave orders

this situation has higher mundane realism so shows Milgram’s study had high ext validity

Question 16

how did obedience levels change when both the teacher and learner were sat in the same room?

Answer 16

fell from 65% to 40%

Question 17

how did obedience levels change when teacher was required to force hand of learner onto shock plate?

Answer 17

fell from 65% to 30%

Question 18

how did obedience levels change when experimenter left and gave further orders over the phone?

Answer 18

fell from 65% to 20.5%

Question 19

how did ppts say Milgram’s study being conducted in a psych lab at Yale make them feel?

Answer 19

gave them confidence of integrity of people involved

Question 20

how did obedience levels change when the study was moved to a less reputable run down office?

Answer 20

fell from 65% to 48%

Question 21

how did Milgram change the uniform of the experimenter from wearing a white lab coat (authority), what effect did this have on obedience levels?

Answer 21

member of public was the experimenter and they wore normal clothes

dropped from 65% to 20%, lowest of all variations

Question 22

what research supports Milgram’s research into situational variables?

Answer 22

Bickman found NYC people obeyed instructions to pick up litter significantly more when the confederate was dressed in security uniform than reg clothes

increases validity of Milgram’s research and increases our confidence that his findings may be true and so can contribute to our understanding of human behaviour regarding social influence

Question 23

how can Orne and Holland’s criticism that Milgram’s research lacks internal validity be furthered for research into situational variables?

Answer 23

adding extra situational variables makes the study even less believable

e.g. ppts even less likely to see the scenario as real if experimenter is replaced by a ‘member of the public’ - even Milgram agreed this might lead to demand characteristics

Question 24

Milgram’s research into situational variables has been replicated in other cultures- how?

Answer 24

Meeus and the Raajmakers more realistic study where ppts had to say very stressful things to a confederate they were job interviewing

found obedience 90%

also supported Milgram’s findings of proximity bc obedience greatly decreased when person giving orders wasn’t present

suggests study is generalisable

Question 25

how can Milgram's research into situational variables being conducted in different cultures be a limitation?

Answer 25

all cultures it was done in are very similar to America Bond and Smith meta analysis between 1968 and 85, only 2 replications conducted in cultures diff to America therefore Milgram's research limited in generalisability

Question 26

what is an agent?

Answer 26

when we act on behalf of someone else, usually when we see someone as higher up in the social hierachy

Question 27

what is meant by agentic state?

Answer 27

we don't feel personally responsible for our behaviour, and we feel powerless due to being an agent SHOWING HIGH LEVELS OF OBEDIENCE

Question 28

how can being in the agentic state make someone feel?

Answer 28

morally strained an anxious, but even if we don't want to obey, we do it anyway due to binding factors

Question 29

what are binding factors?

Answer 29

an aspect of the situation that reduces our moral strain by reassuring us that it is not our responsibility

Question 30

what is the autonomous state?

Answer 30

we are independent and and have control over our actions so act according to our own principles

Question 31

what is an agentic shift?

Answer 31

when given an order from an authority figure who we see as legitimate, we make an AGENTIC SHIFT from an autonomous state to an agentic state

Question 32

why do we as people know who is where on the social hierarchy?

Answer 32

due to socialisation those above us have legitimate authority and those below do not this is needed for society to run smoothly

Question 33

why do we give up our independence for legitimate authority?

Answer 33

we trust that people exert their power over us for good reason

Question 34

what does destructive authority exploit and why?

Answer 34

legitimacy of authority to order people to commit cruel acts

Question 35

what can legitimacy of authority be demonstrated through?

Answer 35

visible symbols e.g. uniform and legitimacy of setting e.g. location

Question 36

what are some ways Milgram's research supports agentic state and LoA?

Answer 36

-the ppt was the agent -ppts often expressed that they didn't want to give shocks and wanted to leave the study but didn't due to binding factors -uniform (lab coat) and location (Yale uni) made the teacher believe they were obeying legitimate authority

Question 37

what did Blass and Schmitt find?

Answer 37

they showed a video of Milgram's study to psychology students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the learner the students blamed the experimenter rather than the ppt, arguing the experimenter had responsibility due to his authority so ppt experienced an agentic shift and no longer felt responsible for giving shocks

Question 38

how does Hofling's nurses study support LoA?

Answer 38

the nurses sae doctors as legitimate authority and obeyed without question

Question 39

how might Hofling's nurses study not fully support LoA and agentic state?

Answer 39

In Hofling's study, the nurses obeyed immediately without showing moral strain or anxiety which contradicts what agentic state argues, so LoA and agentic state may only be limited explanations

Question 40

how can LoA and agentic state explain cultural differences?

Answer 40

many studies show that countries differ in the degree that people obey authority e.g. Milburn and Mann replicated Milgram's procedure in Australia and found only 16% of ppt went to 450V, Mantell found 85% in Germany different societies are structured more/less hierarchically and children are raised to perceive authority figures differently.

Question 41

how is accounting for individual differences a limitation of LoA and agentic state as explanations of obedience?

Answer 41

not every ppt in Milgram's study gave 450V shock suggests not everyone saw authority as legitimate and some people may just be naturally more obedient than others

Question 42

how does legitimacy of authority explain real life events?

Answer 42

Kelman and Hamilton argue that the My Lai massacre can be understood in terms of the power hierarchy of the US

Question 43

what does a dispositional explanation for obedience mean?

Answer 43

personality

Question 44

define authoritarian personality? who came up with it?

Answer 44

a personality type that is especially obedient to authority figures. They are highly submissive to those of a higher status and dismissive of those 'inferior' to them Adorno came up with it

Question 45

give some authoritarian personality features?

Answer 45

-high respect for those above them in social hierachy -identify with 'strong' people -hostile to people with less status -fixed stereotypes -fixed cognitive style (black and white thinking)

Question 46

what kind of process is obedience for those with an authoritarian personality?

Answer 46

unconscious

Question 47

what is the procedure of Adorno's F-scale study?

Answer 47

2000 middle class, white Americans measured their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups using a questionnaire used the F-scale, higher score means more authoritarian so Adorno thought more likely to be obedient

Question 48

what did Adorno find in his study?

Answer 48

a strong positive correlation with high scores on F-scale, and prejudice so more likely to be obedient

Question 49

what reason did Adorno give for people developing an AP?

Answer 49

in childhood as a response to harsh parenting

Question 50

what is meant by harsh parenting in regards to developing the authoritarian personality?

Answer 50

strict discipline including physical punishment, expectations to be completely loyal, too high standards, high criticism and conditional love

Question 51

what does harsh parenting during childhood lead to?

Answer 51

hostility and despair in the child, and they blame feeling like this on people below them they can't take their hostility out on their parents due to fear of people above them in the social hierachy this leads to a dislike or hatred of those socially inferior through scapegoating- this is a psychodynamic explanation

Question 52

what does measuring the authoritarian personality rely on? how is this a limitation?

Answer 52

self-report using the F-scale and the data may be invalid due to social desirability bias and acquiesce bias (the tendency to simply agree with everything)

Question 53

what did Greenstein say about the problem with the F-scale?

Answer 53

every item is worded in the same direction, you could tick the same side of the page for each question and score as highly authoritarian

Question 54

give two examples of research to support the authoritarian personality?

Answer 54

Milgram- not everyone went to 450V- suggests variation in obedience levels could be due to personality Milgram and Elms conducted an interview with a small sample of obedient ppts who scored highly on F-scale ; results supported Adorno's findings that obedience was due to their fascist beliefs

Question 55

Adorno found a correlation- how could this be a limitation?

Answer 55

impossible to draw a casual conclusion of whether obedience was CAUSED by dispositional factors 3rd variable problem e.g. level of education impossible to measure authoritarian personality due to childhood origin

Question 56

what did Hyman and Sheatsley find and what does this say about the third variable?

Answer 56

found the authoritarian personality is more likely to exist among people who are less well educated and of low economic social status- this may be the 3rd variable

Question 57

why can't authoritarian personality be used to explain mass obedience?

Answer 57

the whole nation cannot be authoritarian the explanation is too individualist

Question 58

how does the dispositional explanation for obedience compare to situational factors?

Answer 58

Milgram's extensive research shows how situation plays a huge part In comparison to Adorno's F-scale, Milgram's results on situational variables are more reliable and valid due to vigorous and controlled experiments