Obedience

What is social psychology?

Social psychology aims to understand aspects of human behavior and how our behavior is influenced by the presence of others.

What did Milgram say about obedience?

Milgram said obedience is necessary for the smooth running of society.

What is social influence?

Social influence is when an individual’s behavior is influenced by real or imagined pressure from others.

What is obedience?

Obedience is yielding to the demands of an authority figure.

What is dissent?

Dissent is rejecting the demands of an authority figure.

Who conducted the famous obedience study?

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984).

What are some key facts about Stanley Milgram?

Born in New York to Jewish parents; affected by the Holocaust; earned a PhD in social psychology from Harvard; known for his controversial experiment on obedience.

What historical event influenced Milgram’s study?

The Holocaust—during WWII, the Nazi Party ordered the mass extermination of millions of Jewish people.

What is the “Germans are different” hypothesis?

After WWII, many believed Nazi soldiers had a flaw that made them more obedient to orders from authority figures.

What was Milgram’s aim in his obedience experiment?

To investigate whether ordinary people would follow orders and give an innocent person a potentially harmful electric shock.

Describing the study - AO1

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