Explanations of obedience - Situational and Dispositional variables

situational variables

factors in the environment that can affect the results of the study

agentic state

a mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe we're acting for an authority figure.

agentic shift

the shift from the autonomous state (feeling a sense of responsibility for our actions) to the agentic state

binding factors

aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore damage caused by behaviour, such as victim blaming. these factors are why we remain in an agentic state

support for agentic state - milgram's experiment

some participants refused to give shocks and asked questions like 'who is responsible if the learner is harmed?'. when the experimenter responded 'i am', the participants went on with no objections, they no longer felt responsible.

limitation of agentic state - limited explanation

doesn't explain why some of milgram's participants refused (and why the 16/18 nurses told to adminster an excessive dose to a patient in rank and jacobson's study didn't). police battalion 101 shot civilians with no orders, they behaved autonomously but destructively

legitimacy of authority

we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. authority is often justified by their position of power within the social hierarchy. it's legitimate due to being agreed upon by society.

how do we learn the legitimacy of authority?

we learn the legitimacy of authority from childhood with parents and teachers.

destructive authority

people can use their legitimate authority to make people do morally bad things

support for legitimacy of authority - kilham and mann, explains cultural differences

only 16% of australian women went to 450V and mantell found that 85% went to 450V in germany. authority is accepted as legitimate to different levels in different cultures

limitation for legitimacy of authority - rank and jacobson, can't explain all disobedience

16/18 nurses disobeyed the command to give an excessive dose to the patient despite working in a rigidly hierarchal authority structure.

dispositional variables

unique or individual responses to situations as a result of past experiences

authoritarian personality

a type of personality that adorno argues was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority. they are also thought to be more dismissive of those whom they deem as inferior

characteristics of the authoritarian personality

• extreme respect to authority (submissive)
• show contempt for those with an inferior status to them
• dislike uncertainty. believes everything to be black and white with no grey areas, everything is right or wrong
• views society as weaker than it once was. wants strong leaders to enforce traditional values (like nationalism and love of family)

origins of authoritarian personality

adorno suggested it forms in childhood as a result of harsh parenting (absolute loyalty, high standards and criticism of failure) consisting of conditional love. it would create hostility in the child that they couldn't take out on their parents in fear of punishment, so their fears are displaced on those they perceive as weaker - scapegoating.

adorno et al's research 1950 - procedure

studied over 2000 middle class white americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic groups. they used the 'potential for facism scale' or the F-scale. it included questions like: obedience and respect are the most important virtues for children to learn.

adorno et al's research 1950 - findings

• those who scored higher on the F-scale (had an authoritarian personality) identified with strong people and were dismissive of the 'weak'. they were very conscious of their status and showed extreme respect for those with a higher authority.
• also found a high number of people having the cognitive characteristic of black and white thinking - fixed stereotypes about other groups
• found a strong positive correlation between authoritarian personality and prejudice

support for authoritarian personality - elms and milgram

interviewed a small sample who participated in the baseline study and were fully obedient. they completed the F-scale. the 20 obedient participants scored significantly higher than the control (20 disobedient participants)

limitations of authoritarian personality - limited explanation

it can't explain obedience in the majority of the country's population. example: pre-war germany, millions displayed obedience, anti-semitic behaviour. they must've all had different personalities and all of them couldn't have possessed the authoritarian personality suggesting that there were other factors in the mix.

limitation of authoritarian personality - political bias

the F-scale only measures tendency towards extreme right-wing ideology. left-wing authoritarianism (russian bolshevism and chinese maoism) is also displayed. adorno's theory doesn't account for obedience to authority across the WHOLE political spectrum