Obedience Flashcards
(34 cards)
What is obedience?
Form of social influence where an individual follows direct orders. Person issuing order usually of higher authority.
Milgram’s Obedience Study - Participants
- 40 male American ppts
- recruited through adverts and flyers (volunteers)
- aged between 20-50, all sort of jobs
- offered $4.50 to take part
Milgram’s Obedience Study - Procedure
- At Yale University
- In room with experimenter (lab coat) and learner receiving electric shock from another room
- Ppts are the one asking questions and administering an increasing electric shock every time learner get questions wrong. (shocks were not real).
- Started at 15v up to 400v. At 300v, learner pounded on the wall, screamed and gave no further responses
- If the ppts was concerned about continuing, the experimenter would give prob like ‘please continue’ or ‘it’s absolutely essential you continue’
Milligram’s Obedience Study - Findings
- No ppts stopped below 300v
- 12.5% (5ppts) stopped at 300v
- 65% went all the way to 400v
-Collected qualitative data - observations of extreme tensions like sweat, biting finger nails. - All ppts debriefed and informed their behaviour was normal and sent follow up questionnaire.
Strengths of Milgram’s study
- Supporting evidence - Sheridan and King - Got ppts to administer shocks to puppies - 54% of men and 100% female delivered a ‘fatal’ shock - suggest results were genuine and trustworthy -high internal validity.
- High external validity - representation of ppts and authority figure and in real life - Holfing demonstrated this with nurses obedience to doctors being very high - high generalisability.
Limitations of Milgram’s study
- Low internal validity - ppts knew it was a set up so may have displayed demand characteristics - low internal validity - listened to tapes and found many had doubt about the shocks.
- Low external validity - conducted in a lab experiment - not reflective of real life obedience situations - can’t be applied
- Ethical issues - deception, possible psychological harm, right to withdraw not made clear due to probs.
What are situational variables?
Several factors researched by Milgram which influence the levels of obedience - Proximity, Location and Uniform
Situational Variable - Proximity change
- Change in closeness between the participant and authority figure (experimenter)
- Change in closeness of the participant and victim (learner)
Situational Variable - Proximity affect
- In original the leaner and ppt were in separate rooms
- In variation they were in the same room
- Obedience to 400v dropped from 65% to 40%
- Couldn’t see the pain they were causing.
Situational Variable - Location change
- The location the order is issued
- In Yale university vs run down building
Situational Variable - Location affect
- In the run down building obedience fell to 47.5% to 400v
- Because the university is seen as more prestigious, higher status experimenter seen to have more authority so more likely to obey them.
Situational Variables - Uniform change
- Change in the outfit worn by authority figure
- In original, experimenter wore grey lab coat then an ordinary person in everyday clothes.
Situational Variables - Uniform affect
- Obedience dropped to 20% to 400v - lowest
- Outfit symbolises the authority and indicates who too obey too.
Strengths of situational variables
- Supporting evidence - demonstrated influence on variables - Field experiment in NYC has 3 confederates dress in 3 diff outfits (milkman, jacket + tie and security guard) - asked them to pick litter from the floor. Twice as likely to obey security guard - uniform shows authority
- Cross culture replication - replicated in other cultures e.g Spain and showed similar results - conclusions valid across other cultures and genders too
- Control of variables - altered one variable at at time - see clear cause and effect relationships.
Limitations of situational variables
- Lack of internal validity - ppts knew wasn’t real - especially when experimenter replaced by member of the public - unclear whether results are genuine - can’t be well generalised.
- Majority of replications taken across western cultures - culture bias.
What are the social-psychological explanations of obedience?
- Agentic state
- Legitimacy of authority
What is the agentic state?
A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting as an agent for someone (an authority figure).
May feel high anxiety for what they’re doing but powerless to obey.
What is the autonomous state?
Opposite of agentic state
Person is free to behave own their own principles independently and has a sense of responsibility for their own actions.
What’s the agentic shift?
The shift from autonomy to agentic.
When does the agentic shift occur?
Occurs when person perceives someone else as a figure of authority. This person has greater power because of their position in the social hierarchy
In social groups, when someone in charge, others defer to this person and shift from autonomous to agency.
What are binding factors?
Aspects of the situation which will allow the person to minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour to remain in agentic state. They could shift responsibility onto the victim or denying damage done to victims.
What is the legitimacy of authority?
More likely to obey people that have legitimate authority over us. Justified by their position of power within a social hierarchy.
Consquences of legitimacy of authority?
People have power to punish others so we learn to give up some of our independence and hand control over to these people.
What is destructive authority?
When a Legitimate Authority becomes destructive. I.e Hitler.
This was shown in Milgrams study when the experimenter used verbal prods.
