Factors affecting obedience

Gender

• Historically, men were associated with strength and independence through roles like hunting and defending, while women were linked to nurturing, caregiving, and cooperation within the home. These traditional divisions shaped perceptions of women as more agreeable and socially compliant, in contrast to men’s expected self‑reliance. As a result, women have often been viewed as more obedient, with their caring and communicative traits aligning with cooperation and responsiveness to authority.

• Research support for the gender differences is from Sheridan & King found 100% of their female subjects administered an electric shock to a live puppy till the end of the shock scale, as instructed by an authority figure, whereas only 54% of men did.

• Burger (2009) found gender differences in obedience were insignificant

Personality

• Authoritarian personalities are seen as more obedient. They have traits such as a dislike towards minority groups, fixed and conventional views of right and wrong and willing to be bossed around by an authoritative figure.

• The locus of control theory explains to having an internal locus of control, where you believe you have control over events affecting your life, making you less likely to obey authority, or an external locus of control where you believe you don't have control over events affect in your life, making you more likely to obey authority.

• Elms and Milgram (1966) did a follow up study and used Adorno's (1950) F scale to sample 20 obedient participants, who administered the full 450V and 20 disobedient participants who refused to continue. Findings showed that fully obedient participants scored higher on the F scale, demonstrating greater authoritative personality traits.

• Burger 2009 concluded that those who scored high on the empathetic scale were more likely to protest when administering electric shocks, but this did not lower levels of obedience overall in those with greater empathetic concern.

Cultures

• Individualistic cultures are more autonomous and independent, more likely to resist obedience, whereas collectivist cultures have relationships with other members of a group or cooperation between people play a central role in a person's identity, more likely to obey

• Shanab and Yahnya's (1977) replication of the Milgram’s study with middle eastern children society - results showed obedience rates were higher (73% collectivist in Jordan, compared to 65% individualistic in America)

• A weakness of individual differences explaining obedience is that they are centered around the characteristics of the subordinate and the theories ignore the characteristics of the authority figure, for example, Social power theory by French and Raven suggests that six types of power influence whether someone will obey an authority figure or not. Legitimate power involves the authority figure having a formal position which demands obedience from a person. Expert Power When you have knowledge and skills that enable you to understand a situation and suggest solutions.

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