Obedience

Milgram aim AO1

• To investigate why Nazis obeyed Hitler during WW2 & explore “Germans are different hypothesis” (genetically or socially different?)

• To investigate how far people would obey authority figure when asked to administer electric shocks

Milgram method AO1

• Recruited 40 male participants aged 20-50 with a range of jobs via volunteer sampling for a study about ‘memory’

• Paid for taking part & introduced to ‘participant’ who was a confederate

• Fixed draw - participant always teacher & confederate learner

• Learner strapped into chair, wired to electrodes

• Teacher given a 45V shock to convince them they were real but shocks fake after that

• In another room with experimenter, teacher had to test learner on word pairs & give an electric shock for every wrong answer in 15V intervals going up to 450V

• If teacher hesitated experimenter encouraged to continue with prods

Milgram findings AO1

• Predicted that most would stop after 150V & no more than 3% would continue to 450V

• 100% of participants went to 300V & 65% went to 450V

Milgram conclusions AO1

Ordinary people follow orders of a perceived authority figure, even when this could kill another person

Milgram strengths AO3

• P - real world applications

• E - findings offer explanations for atrocities eg war crimes by highlighting powerful influence of authority figures. War crime trials have used ‘following orders defence’ which supports his view

• T - findings are useful & may help us understand how to prevent future war crimes

Milgram limitations AO3

• P - ethical issues

• E - deception as participants thought shocks were real & thought it was a ‘memory & learning’ study. Protection from harm - participants suffered psychological distress as discovered they were capable of killing someone. Some showed signs of distress eg trembling

• T - may have suffered long term psychological effects

  HOWEVER (Counter-point) - participants were examined by a psychiatrist & showed no signs of harm & 80% said they were happy to have taken part

• P - restricted sample via volunteer sampling

• E - Volunteer sampling may attract certain type of personality eg confident that’s not representative of whole pop. Bias sample of 40 american males

• T - findings not generalisable to whole pop & in particular females (beta bias)

  HOWEVER he later repeated with females & found similar high levels of obdience

What are the 2 explanations for obedience? AO1

• Agentic state

• Legitimacy of authority figure

Agentic state AO1

• Mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our personal actions because we’re acting as an ‘agent’ for someone else

• Agent not unfeeling as they experience anxiety but they feel powerless to disobey

• Opposite is autonomous state where a person acts independently & feels personal responsibility

• Shift from to autonomy to agency = agentic shift - occurs when there is a perceived figure of authority who has more power in social hierarchy

• Agentic shift increases obedience levels

• Binding factors allow them ignore or minimise effects of their behaviour & reduce moral strain eg blaming victim or denying damage

Legitimacy of authority AO1

• More likely to obey someone who we perceive to have legitimate authority over us

• Authority is justified by person’s position of power in social hierarchy & allows society to run smoothly

• Increases obedience levels

• Consequence of destructive authority eg Hilter & experimenter in Milgram’s study

Explanations for obedience strengths AO3

• P - useful account of cultural differences in obedience

• E - Kilham & Mann replicated Milgram’s study in Australia & found only 16% went to 450V where as the figure was 85% for Germans

• T - shows that in some cultures authority is more likely to be accepted & perceived as legitimate so obedience levels are higher. This reflects how different societies are structured & cross-cultural research increases validity

• P - research to support

• E - Blass & Schmidt showed Milgram’s study to students & asked them to identify who was responsible for the learner’s harm. They blamed the experimenter due to his legitimate authority as scientist & position in social hierarchy

• T - recognised legitimacy of authority figure as cause of obedience

Explanations of obedience limitations AO3

• P - agentic shift is a limited explanation

• E - doesn’t explain why some participants didn’t obey & doesn’t explain findings from Hofling et al as they didn’t show high levels of anxiety like Milgram’s participants whilst in the agentic state

• T - agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience

• P - research to show that behaviour of Nazis can’t be explained by these (obedience alibi)

• E - Mandel described an incident involving German Police Batallion 101 shooting civilians in a town in Poland although they weren’t given direct orders to do so

• T - only applicable to certain situations as people can act sadistically out of free will/human nature rather than obeying an authority figure. Disrespectful to holocaust survivors as not holding nazis responsible

What are the situational variables of obedience? AO1

• Location

• Proximity of the learner into

• Proximity of the experimenter

• Uniform

Location AO1

• Migram moved the experiment from Yale university to a run-down office block

• Obedience fell to 47.5%

• This may be because the experiment didn’t seem as legitimate or important

Uniform AO1

• Milgram changed the experimenter’s grey lab coat to everyday clothes

• Obedience fell to 20%

• This may be because a uniform is a symbol of power & status & it makes the authority figure seem more legitimate

Proximity of learner AO1

• Proximity of learner - when milgram moved the learner into the same room as the teacher, obedience dropped to 40%

• When the participant had to force the learners hand onto a shock plate, obedience dropped to 30% (touch proximity)

• This may because they could see the harm they were causing as they were no longer in separate rooms. More easy to detach themselves in seperate rooms & be in agentic state

Proximity of experimenter AO1

• When the experimenter gave instructions via telephone, obedience fell to 20.5%

• Some participants even pretended to give the shock

• This may be because they felt less social pressure from the authority figure

Situational variables strengths AO3

• P - research to support

• E - Bickman carried out a field experiment where codederates dressed in different clothing & asked civilians to pick up litter. Found that people were twice more likely to obey security guard rather than someone dressed in everyday clothes

• T - supports Milgram’s view that uniform is a symbol of authority & is a situational factor that increases obedience

• P - cross-cultural replications

• E - Miranda et al found 90% obedience rate in spanish students. Another study found 90% obedience rate in dutch participants & obedience dropped dramatically when authority figure wasn’t present

• T - Milgram’s views aren’t limited to american males but are valid across cultures & females so generalisable

  HOWEVER Smith & Bond argued most replications are carried out in western developments so situational variables may not apply universally as little research

Situational variables limitations AO3

• P - lack internal validity

• E - Orne & Holland argued that Milgram’s participants worked out it was fake & responded to demand characteristics eg when the experimenter was replaced by a member of the public

• T - unclear whether the results are due to genuine obedience or because participants saw through deception & acted accordingly

• P - obedience alibi

• E - Mandel argues explanations offers an excuse or alibi for evil behaviour that people can manipulate.

• T - offensive to Holocaust survivors to suggest Nazis were simply acting out of orders & were victims of situational factors beyond their control

Authoritarian personality AO1

• Dispositional explanation

• Proposed by Adorno et al that people who have an authoritarian personality are more likely to obey

• Characteristics: extreme respect for authority, submissive, conventional attitudes towards race, sex etc, hostile to those in lower positions, stereotypical ideas

• Developed the F-scale (fascism) questionnaire to measure personality & found a positive correlation between authoritarianism & prejudice

• Formed in childhood from harsh parenting eg strict discipline, conditional love

• Experiences create resentment & hostility which is displaced into others ‘weaker’ (scapegoating)

What did Adorno want to investigate? AO1

Wanted to understand anti-semitism of the holocaust so investigated a group of middle class, white americans unconscious attitude towards other racial groups

Authoritarian personality strengths AO3

• P - research to support

• E - Milgram conducted interviews with 20 fully obedient participants & found that they scored significantly higher on f-scale than disobedient participants

• E - supports view that obedient people may show characteristics of Authoritarian Personality

• HOWEVER link is merely a correlation between 2 measured variables so impossible to draw conclusion that authoritarian personality cause obedience - may be other factors involved

Authoritarian personality limitations AO3

• P - limited explanation as it doesn’t explain how whole groups/populations of people are obedient

• E - In pre-war germany millions of people displayed obedient, sadistic and semitic behaviour towards jews despite the fact they all had different personalities. Highly unlikely they all had an authoritarian personality

• T - alternative explanation more realistic - social identity explains obedience. Germans identified with antisemitic nazi state & scapegoated the ‘outgroup’ of jews

• P - methodological issues

• E - Greenstein called it a “comedy of methodological issues” as every question is worded in the same direction. It is possible to get a high score just by ticking line of boxes on one side

• T - suggests that people with high scores aren’t authoritarians but acquiesers as the scale is measuring a person’s tendency to agree with everything (acquiescence bias)