obedience

3 main explanations

situational variables

dispositional explanations

psychological explanations

what do the three explanations involve?

situational variables: uniform, location, proximity

dispositional explanations: authoritarian personality

psychological explanations: agentic state, legitimacy of authority

agentic state meaning

the proposal that people obey when they are given a command because they “switch into” a different state in which they no longer feel personally responsible for their actions, obedience autopilot.

agentic state points

• gives up free will and no longer sees themselves as acting independently, but as an agent instead

• surrender conscience and become an instrument for authority

autonomous state points

• aware of consequences and responsibilities, think as an independent individual, guided by own conscience

• feel guilty and accept personal responsibility

• only follow orders if you agree

moral strain is conflict

conflict between:

• you must never hurt anyone

• you must always obey authority

moral strain

• milgram proposed that someone in an agentic state will experience this

• feeling uncomfortable or distressed as a consequence of going against your own conscience and doing something you know is wrong

defence mechanisms about moral strain

• repression

• denial (eg. nazi soldiers who deny holocaust ever occurred)

binding factors definition

reasons people give themselves to justify ongoing obedience to authority figure, even if they feel uncomfortable with the actions they are told to perform. it is a subtle psychological mechanism that traps people in a situation, making it difficult for them to disobey

binding factors examples

• fear of appearing rude/arrogant

• the need to maintain consistency

• workplace bullying

legitimacy of authority

suggests if we perceive the authority figure to have the power to tell us what to do then we are more likely to obey them. it is subjective and changes depending on location, proximity and social hierarchy

hofling 1966

• 21/22 (95%) of nurses obeyed doctors orders to give an unsafe dosage until an observer stopped them

• only one questioned identity of researcher (dr. smith) and why he was at the ward

• 11 nurses knew the harm, 10 didn’t notice but assumed it would be safe

bickman 1974

• 153 pedestrians, unaware of experiment aim: does uniform affect obedience?

• experimenter dressed either as a security guard, milkman, or civilian

• low authority to high authority: no uniform → milkman uniform → guard uniform

legitimacy of authority evaluation

• face validity (logical, real world scenarios)

• takes account of cultural differences

• research support (milgram)

authoritarian personality

some people are more likely to obey compared to others. adorno proposed people with authoritarian personality are more likely to obey compared he developed a questionnaire called the F-scale (the higher the score, the more obedient you are)

sigmund freud dispositional explanation

harsh upbringing, little love, punishments:

1. fear of parents → excessively respectful of authority figures

2. hatred of parents → hate and anger displaced onto others

authoritarian personality research support

• elms and milgram 1966: aim was to see if obedient ppts had more of an authoritarian personality

• 20 obedient, 20 disobedient ppts completed F-scale

• obedient ppts scored higher on the F-scale, and were typically less close to their fathers and had more respect for the experimenters than other ppts