DISPOSITIAL FACTORS AFFECTING OBEDIENCE

Question 1

Individual Differences - Authoritarian personality

Answer 1

Adorno argued that the key to understanding extreme obedience and racial prejudice is to look early in childhood experiences where personality is formed

Authoritarian personalities have a tendency to be extremely obedient

Question 2

Why do people have Authoritarian personalities?

Answer 2

Adorno found that pps who had been brought up by strict parents who used physical punishment often grew up to be very obedient
Authoritarians often come from cold and unloving families with a hostile atmosphere that withdraw affection as a mental punishment

Question 3

How did Adorno study his theory?

Answer 3

• Adorno interviewed 2000 US students from mainly white middle class backgrounds
• He spoke to them about their childhood experiences
• He used projective tests to gain access to their unconscious thoughts and assess their levels of obedience and prejudice

Question 4

What is the F scale?

Answer 4

It measures how authoritarian an individual is
How patriotic and traditional an individuals views tend to be

Question 5

Authoritarianism - conventionalism
(people with high F scores will be more conventionalist)

Answer 5

They believe that obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn
They believe that rules are very important

Question 6

Authoritarianism - Aggression

Answer 6

They get aggressive when people break social norms and have unconventional views
People with high F scores do not challenge things/authority

Question 7

Authoritarianism - power and toughness

Answer 7

People with high scores think people can be divided into two distinct classes: strong (hardworking) and weak (lazy)
(Social dominance orientation)

Question 8

Authoritarian personality (strength) - Elms and Milgram

Answer 8

They interviewed Milgrams participants and found that pps who were really obedient/went to 450 V scored higher on authoritarianism tests

Question 9

Authoritarian personality (strength) - Damnrun & Vatine

Answer 9

They created a simulation of Milgrams experiment using a virtual environment/computer simulation and found that authoritarianism was linked to obedience, as high authoritarian scores = less likely to withdraw from the study

Question 10

Authoritarian personality (Weakness) - Chan

Answer 10

Chan found that refugees of the Chinese revolution have high authoritarian personalities, but gradually changed when they moved to the USA

• Their authoritarian personality is not due to family but developed from school (going against Adorno’s claims)
• Their personality change when they moved to the USA, suggesting that authoritarian personalities are not fixed

Question 11

Authoritarian personality (Weakness) - Elms & Milgram

Answer 11

Elms and Milgram also found that pps who went up to 450 V and scored high on the authoritarianism test, also had a loving relationship with their parents
(going against Adorno’s claims)

Question 12

What does charisma have to do with obedience?

Answer 12

Charismatic leaders may contribute to obedience and enhance peoples tendency towards destructive obedience
E.g - Hitler and Stalin were regarded as charismatic leaders. Conversely charismatic leadership can also bring positive change.
E.g Gandhi and Martin Luther King

Charisma is best understood in terms of the characteristics of the leader and the relationship they have with their followers

Question 13

Characteristics of a charismatic leader

Answer 13

Charismatic leaders have a clear vision, clear reason to obey them and emotional language

Question 14

What does dispositional factors mean?

Answer 14

= individual differences and personality trait that affect an individuals level of obedience

Question 15

Dispositional factors

Answer 15

• Authoritarian personality
• Locus of control
• Gender
• Empathy

Question 16

Who came up with the concept “locus of control”?

Answer 16

Rotter (1966)

Question 17

What does internal locus of control refer to?

Answer 17

An individuals perception of their personal control over events in their own life and their own behaviour

• Someone with a strong internal locus of control, believes that they can control events to an extent and what happens to them is a result of their own ability and effort. They generally display independence in adult behaviour and rely less on other peoples opinions (they are more able to resist social influence)

Question 18

What does external locus of control refer to?

Answer 18

• When an individual has a strong belief in luck, fate and other peoples opinions, they believe that things that happen are out of their control
• People with strong internal locus of control tend to take less personal responsibility for their actions and are less likely to display independent behaviour and follow the influence of others

Question 19

Locus of control weakness - Schurz (1985)

Answer 19

• He conducted a study similar to Milgrams procedure
• He instructed Austrian pps to give painful doses of ultrasound to a female student
• There was a little different in locus of control between those who obeyed and those who descended
• Suggesting locus of control has a little effect on obedience levels
  (gender is worth noting)

Question 20

Locus of control strength - Oliner & Oliner

Answer 20

• Interviewed 2 groups of non-Jewish people who lived through the Holocaust
• Comparing the 406 who had protected and rescued Jews from the Nazis with 126 who had not acted
• They found that ‘rescuers’ had scores demonstrating high internal locus of control and scored high on measures of social responsibility

Question 21

Locus of control - Evaluation

Answer 21

• From most of the studies, it appears that locus of control and social responsibility are both factors of an individuals ability to disobey orders and a social norms

Question 22

Individual difference - Empathy

Answer 22

We assume people who have high levels of empathy will be less likely to harm others when instructed to do so by perceived authority figure
However
Burger (2009) - who tested empathy before conducting his study - found that although people who scored high on empathy tests were more likely to protest against giving electric shocks, this did not translate to lower levels of obedience

Question 23

Individual differences weakness - Gender - Blass (1998)

Answer 23

• He studied 9 other replications of Milgram’s study which also had male and female pps
• Consistent with Milgrams own findings 8/9 times, there was no evidence of any gender differences regarding obedience

Question 24

Individual differences strength - Gender - Sheridan & King

Answer 24

• Adapted Milgrams experiment, using live puppies as the learner
• All 13 female pps were much more compliant with the demands made by the authority figure

Females = 100% obedience rate
Males = 54% obedience rate

Question 25

Individual differences - Gender - developmental psychology

Answer 25

- According to gender role scheme theory, individuals develop a sense of masculinity and femininity as they are raised and socialised - These gender role schemas or stereotypes affect how we perceive ourselves and others (they depict men as strong & aggressive and females as quiet & compliant) - Conversely, biological explanations of gender might suggest that as males are exposed to more testosterone, they will potentially behave in a more aggressive manner, and therefore will be more likely inflict greater levels of harm as a result of destructive obedience - However these predictions of behaviour based on gender do not appear to be true Conclusion - It seems there is little, if any gender difference in obedience despite traditional beliefs that females would be more compliant to the demands of authority

Question 26

Individual differences weakness - Gender - Milgram’s variation

Answer 26

- Milgram’s original research was androcentric and only accounted for male obedience - He conducted a variation where he studied females - After comparing the results to his previous research, he found that there is no significant difference between male and female obedience

Question 27

Individual differences - Culture - Regarding obedience, what are the two types of cultural factors?

Answer 27

Individualist and Collectivist

Question 28

What are individualistic cultures?

Answer 28

(such as the UK and US) - Individualistic cultures tend to behave in more independent less conformist or compliant ways - Tend to be less obedience

Question 29

What are collectivist cultures?

Answer 29

(such as China or Israel) - Collectivist cultures tend to behave more as a collective group based on interdependence meaning that cooperation and compliance are regarded as important for the stability of the group - They tend to place the interest of the wider group above their own individual interests which may explain why they are more obedient

Question 30

How is the obedience of a culture ranked?

Answer 30

Countries are ranked on PDI scores - High PDI cultures value respect and less likely to challenge authority - Low PDI cultures see lower levels of obedience and higher levels of individualism

Question 31

Who came up with PDI scores and what does it mean?

Answer 31

= Hofstede (2017) = Power Distance Index (PDI) The relationship between those with power and society and those with less power

Question 32

Individual differences weakness - Culture - Milgram variation

Answer 32

- Milgram replicated to study in India Where PDI scores are 77% - Obedience levels in India were only 42.5% - In his original study obedience in the US was 63% This contradicts the expectation of the PDI relationship to obedience

Question 33

Individual differences strength - Culture - Hamilton & Sanders

Answer 33

- Conducted a study with US, Japanese, and Russian pps - Presented pps with scenarios where a crime was either an individualist idea or the order of a superior - Pps had to attribute a level of responsibility for each scenario - US pps attributed more personal responsibility to individualists acting criminally under orders than Japanese and Russian pps did (thus obedience might be more important in Japanese and Russian culture than US culture) - Obeying even criminally wrong orders might be seen as appropriate more in Japan and Russia than in the US

Question 34

Authoritarian personality as an explanation of obedience - weaknesses

Answer 34

Chan Elms & Milgram

Question 35

Authoritarian personality as an explanation of obedience - strengths

Answer 35

Elms & Milgram Damnrun & Vatine

Question 36

Locus of control as an explanation of obedience - weaknesses

Answer 36

Schurz

Question 37

Locus of control as an explanation of obedience - strengths

Answer 37

Oliner & Oliner

Question 38

Gender as an explanation of obedience - weaknesses

Answer 38

Blass

Question 39

Gender as an explanation of obedience - Strength

Answer 39

Sheridan & King

Question 40

Gender as an explanation of obedience - conclusion

Answer 40

Gender role schema theory Biological explanation - Little if any evidence despite traditional beliefs

Question 41

Culture as an explanation of obedience - weaknesses

Answer 41

Milgram variation in India

Question 42

Culture as an explanation of obedience - strength

Answer 42

Hamilton & Sanders