Obedience A.g

- A form of social influence

- An individual follows a direct order from a perceived authority figure.

- Implication that the person wouldn't otherwise have responded without the order.

Aim

- Whether ordinary people would obey an authority figure, even when the figure was unjust & required to injure another person.

Procedure

- 40 male participants (volunteers-paid $4.50) @ Yale uni.

- Study was supposedly about how punishment affects learning.

- Told they could quit at anytime

- 2 confeds: experimenter (authority figure) & learner

- Real pp was always the teacher: their job to administer increasingly strong electric shocks to learner when they made a mistake.

-Learner sat in another room & gave mainly the wrong answers = fake shock.

- Shocks went up in 15v increments up to 300v, @ this point they banged on the wall & gave no response.

- If teacher felt unsure about continuing the researcher would give verbal prods (please continue.)

Findings

- All = at least300v

- 12.5% = stopped at 300v

- 65% = highest level - 450v

- Pp's showed signs of extreme tension "sweat, trembling & 3 passed out".

Conclusion

- Ordinary people will obey authority even when they know what they are doing is wrong - not just evil people that commit evil crimes just ordinary people obeying orders.

- This study has been repeated numerous times.

- A French televisions show 'Le Jeu de la Mort where pp's believed they were contestants in a pilot episode

- They were asked to give electric shocks to other contestants when ordered by the presenter.

- 80% of pp's delivered max shocks of 460v to an apparently unconscious man.

- Showed same behaviour as in Milgram's: nail biting..

- Supports original findings & conclusions & is not a one-off occurrence = good reliability

- Hofling et al - obedience in hospitals

-Nurses asked by authority figure to give higher dose of unfamiliar drug to patient.

- 95% (21/22) followed order.

-Suggests Milgram's research has good ecological validity.

- However, nurses less obedient when allowed to discuss actions w/ other nurses or use a well-known drug (11%) = other factors influence obedience levels.

- Milgram's research is supported by others but doesn't account for obedience in all situations & circumstances.

- Orne & Holland said pp's were 'going along w/ the act'.

- Argued pp's didn't really believe the set-up - guessed shocks weren't real.

- Means study didn't test what it intended = lacks internal validity.

- Pp's changed behaviour to please experimenter = demand characteristics.

-Milgram disputed claims, debriefing film evidence shows pp's were genuinely distressed when delivering shocks.

- He told pp's the aims was to see the effect of punishment on learning.

- By using deception, denied them of the right to informed consent.

- But he argued deception was necessary to avoid findings becoming meaningless.

- To deal w/ this ethical issue he held debriefing session, reassuring them their behaviour was normal.

84% the were glad to have taken part, 74% said they had learnt something about themselves.

- People obey authority when they believe they are acting as an agent - on behalf of authority figure & feel less responsible for their own behaviour

- When they act on their own principles this is known as the autonomous state, they constantly switch between the 2 - agentic shift.

Investigation by Milgram

- Obedience was higher when experimenter was in same room as teacher - 65%.

- Was reduced when experimenter was instructed to give instructions via the telephone- 20.5%.

- Difference due to being in agentic state.

- People use it in defence of their actions

-Adolf Eichmann (Nazi Commander responsible for genocide of millions in concentration camps).

- Claimed he was simply 'only following orders' when he stood trial.

- Agentic state- obeying someone higher-ranked than himself.

- Shows defence can be used for those who have committed crimes.

1. Ignores Dispositional Factors: those w/ high social responsibility or high internal LOC = resist social pressures like obedience.

2. Individual Differences: Some people don't always obey e.g. disobedient participants in Milgram.

- Refers to amount of social power held by person giving instructions.

- Social power may be associated w/ social roles (teachers..) or w/ social status (gang members) .

- From young age taught obeying authority makes us more acceptable especially when they have the power to punish us.

Milgram's Investigation

- In variation used a run down office block = 48% obeyed

- Compared to 65% in prestigious uni, Yale

- Legitimacy of uni increased power of experimenter = pp's trust him more

- Tarnow studied data from US National Saftey Board review of air traffic accidents.

- 19/37 accidents - major contributory factor = authority of captain

- Co-pilots felt unable to challenge wrong decisions.

- Legitimacy of Authority increased obedience = accidents.

- Kilham & Mann replicated Milgram's procedure in Australia

- 16% went to top of voltage scale

- Mantell's replication in Germany - 85%

- Some cultures, more likely to be accepted as legitimate & entitled to demand obedience.

- Gives a useful account of cultural differences in obedience.

1. Proximity

2. Location

3. Uniform

- Distance between people, objects or situatins.

- In this case, refers to how close teacher was to learner & to consequences of their actions.

Milgram's Investigation

- Teacher (real pp) was put in same room as learner (confed) = less obedience.

- In same room teacher could see distress of learner obedience dropped - 40%

- In another variation, teacher had to force learner's hand onto shock plate, dropped further - 30%

- Explains why obeying order to press button, thousands of miles away from where missile is launched = easier than killing someone in front of you.

- Difference in proximity changes the awareness of the consequences.

- Can affect the ways a request is view & likelihood of obedience.

Milgram's Investigation

- Lab in Yale Uni - Ivy League & High Status

- Obedience rates higher in institutionalised settings.

- In run down office block obedience dropped = 48% from 65%

- Less prestigious location = obedience drops

- Can make direct comparison between levels of obedience in 2 locations.

- Due to replication of all other variables (kept the same)

- Can conclude drop in obedience due to change in location.

- Clothing worn by authority figure can affect perception a person has of them & can change whether they obey or not.

Milgram's Investigation

- Experimenter wore white lab coat to establish their authority throughout.

- In this variation, experimenter was called away & confed acting as an ordinary person took over.

- Change from uniform to no uniform reduced obedience to only 20% up to full voltage.

- Bickmann - field experiment in NY

- He asked passers-by to complete tasks: pick up rubbish or lend him money for parking meter.

- When dressed as a security guard 92% obeyed to lend money.

- When in normal clothes, dropped to 58%

- How important uniform can be in changing obedience rates .

- Certain people, no matter the situation, may be more obedient than others - due to their personality or disposition.

- Characterised by strict adherence to conventional values and belief in absolute obedience to authority.

Authoritarian Personality

- Adorno worked w/ European psychologists who fled Nazi persecution.

- Argued people w/ authoritarian personality have a tendency to be extremely obedient & investigated this.

Procedure

- Investigated causes of obedient personality in more than 2000 m/c white American men.

- Developed F-Scale, which involved pp's rating their agreement w/ statements on a 6-point scale (disagree strongly to agree strongly).

Findings

- People who scored highly on the F-Scale identified w/ strong people & generally hostile towards the weak.

- They are hyper-conscious of their status & showed excessive respect to those in positions of authority above them.

- Personality originates from early childhood as a result of strict and harsh parents who expected absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards &a sever criticism of perceived failings.

Conclusions

- People w/ authoritarian personality have tendency to be especially obedient to authority.

- Milgram & Elms conducted interviews w/ sample from Milgram's study.

- Those who were highly obedient were significantly more authoritarian on F-Scale than disobedient pp's.

- Idea of link between authoritarian personality & obedience.

- Zilmer et al reported that 16 Nazi war criminals scored highly on 3 dimensions of F-Scale.

- Gives support to theory that authoritarian personality increases obedience.

- However, they didn't score highly on all 9 dimensions of F-Scale = limited support.

- Adorno & colleagues measured a range of variables & found many significant correlations between them.

- No matter how strong correlation, doesn't mean that one causes the other.

- Authoritarianism & obedience may be linked but link is limited

-We can't conclude that authortarian personality causes high level of obedience.

- Explanation focuses on the personality being the reason why some people would obey.

- Very determinist = suggests someone doesn't have a choice in whether they obey or not (free will).

- Also, reductionist = ignores the impact of other factors such as situational variables which may be important.