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THIS IS A LARGE 77 PAGE DOCUMENT ENCOMPASSING THE WHOLE EDEXCEL COURSE:
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- social
- cognitive
- biological
- learning
- clinical
- child
- research methods
- issues and debates (a few are m...
Agency theory: obedience
● Autonomous state - self-directed, we are able to choose how to behave and take responsibility for
our own actions. We operate in this state if we are alone, or with people that are below/in line
with our own authority.
● Agentic state- we become the ‘agent’ of the authority figure - we believe that we are acting on
their behalf and thus perform actions that go against our own morals. This happens when we are
with someone above our perceived authority status
● The transition between these two states is called the agentic shift.
● Moral strain - the anxiety that occurs when we are obeying orders from others that harm people or
go against our own morals. This leads to cognitive dissonance, a state of mental conflict (moral
strain is not enough alone to deter us from obedience).
● The role of socialisation - agency theory suggests that we have an innate potential for obedience,
which implies that everyone has the same capacity. However, obedience is shaped by experiences
such as parenting styles and educational experiences.
S: Milgram’s 1963 study into obedience where he found that 100% of PPTs would administer a shock of
300v to a confederate and 65% to 450v if told to do so by a perceived authority figure.
C: rank and jacobson 1977 - found that 16 out of 18 nurses (89%) failed to obey orders from a doctor
who instructed them to administer an overdose of Valium. This shows that despite the doctors being an
obvious source of authority, the vast majority of the sample remained autonomous. This qualitative data
demonstrates that the nurses did consider themselves responsible for their actions.
O: social impact theory - Bibb Latane 1981
U: application to the military - when binding factors outweigh moral strain, obedience occurs. This has
been applied to the military to devise strategies that ensure soldiers follow orders without question by
reducing moral strain.
- Euphemisms such as ‘collateral damage’ and dehumanising language are used to refer to the
enemy.
- Shows that an authority figures communication can minimise moral strain, ensuring that soldiers
remain in the agentic state even when committing heinous acts.
T: Milgram and Burger - limited for ethical reasons, especially in terms of deception. Obedience is a
human behaviour that is highly susceptible to demand characteristics and is thus hard to test without some
kind of ethical breach.
Social Impact Theory:
Defined by Bibb Latane in 1981
● Social impact refers to the effect that real/imagined people can have on our behaviour
● Source - the person or group giving the order.
● Target - the group they are attempting to influence.
● Multiplicative effect - the idea that the more targets that respond to the order, the more likely it is
that more will (this effect will eventually plateau: example would be neck-craning in public. If
one person did this, others would follow to see what the commotion is, but eventually this will
cap off)
, ● Divisional effect - the power to influence is divided upon multiple people (example: pressure
groups in politics or public campaigning).
● The law of diminishing returns - once the source group is bigger than three, each additional
person has less of an influencing effect.
S: sedikides and jackson 1990 - field experiment at the Bronx zoo where visitors were asked not to lean
on a railing by the researcher.
- The strength of the order was manipulated by the experiment wearing casual clothing or a
zookeeper uniform : 35% vs 58%
- Obedience declined when the visitors were further away from the person making the orders: 61%
in the same room vs 7% in the next room.
- The divisional effect was tested based on the size of the naturally occurring groups: groups of 1
or 2 people had an obedience rate of 60% compared to 14% in groups of 5 or 6.
C: the role of immediacy may not be a key factor. Hofling 1966 - doctors called 22 nurses and asked
them to administer an overdose of a drug that was not on their ward list. 95% began to follow the orders
despite the doctor not being immediately present.
O: agency theory
U: application to political influence - political leaders can increase their influence by (1) a strong and
persuasive style of communication (2) reach voters face to face (3) addressing smaller groups rather than
larger ones
T: obedience is a hard concept to test. Natural observations are rare and lack internal validity but other
experiments are highly susceptible to demand characteristics
Milgram’s study into obedience:
1963 baseline -
Aim: to understand the behaviour of the German soldiers who followed the heinous orders they were
given in the Holocaust.
Sample: volunteer sampling through ads in newspapers and letters in the post.
● Varied professions.
● 40 men age 20-50
● All from the New Haven industrial area.
Procedure:
● PPTs were placed in an adjacent room to the ‘learner’.
● Told to give the ‘learner’ electric shocks if they answered a question wrong.
● PPT received a real 45V shock to make them believe they were real.
● The voltage increased by 15v each time: 30 switches labelled from ‘slight shock’ to ‘XXX’.
● When at 300v, the ‘learner’ was heard pounding on the wall.
● At 315V more pounding was heard and from then on out, there was no more sound from the
learner
Verbal prods: used to encourage the PPT to continue - could leave after these four prods.
1) Please continue
2) Please go on
3) The experiment requires that you continue
4) You have no other choice, you must go on.
,Findings:
● 65% administered the full 450.
● 100% administered 315V but 12.5% had dropped out by this point.
● PPTs were observed to tremble, sweat, bite their lips, dig their nails into their flesh.
● 35% exhibited nervous laughter.
● Three PPTs had full-blown seizures and many required long-term psychological support.
Conclusions: found that ordinary Americans are obedient to legitimate authority.
- Suggested that a number of factors may explain obedience such as the perceived competence and
reputation of the researcher and the idea that their participation somehow advanced science.
- Implied that typical people have the innate capacities to follow such orders which is a distressing
claim to make.
- Almost justifies the actions of the German soldiers by claiming they did it because of the
legitimacy of who they received their orders from.
G: good age range with PPTs from different professions.
- All from one area in the USA so cannot be generalised.
- Only men were used in the sample as Milgram believed that women would be naturally more
obedient (however, it would have been only male soldiers during the Holocaust so this was an
appropriate gender bias to make).
R: easily replicable as shown through Burger’s 2009 study.
- Standardised procedure: the ‘learner’ had scripted responses to the fake shocks and the verbal
prods should have stayed the same each time.
- Perry 2012: allegedly Milgram gave as many as 20 prods before allowing a PPT to leave, this
departure from procedure limits the standardisation and thus the replicability.
A: Understanding why the German soldiers in WW2 committed such orders can be used as a preventative
for similar exercises of power being done again.
- Tarnow 2000: pilot training - first officers tend to fail to monitor challenges made by the captain
due to their perceived authority even when this is putting others at risk.
- Applying Milgram’s studies could prevent up to 20% of plane crashes.
V: Orne and Holland 1968 - PPTs did not believe that it was real shocks due to the lack of concern that
the experimenter showed for the learning.
Perry 2012 - previously unseen footage shows that PPTs expressed their suspicions about the reality of
the shocks which calls to question the validity.
E:
- Some PPTS received long-term support to cope with the study.
- PPts were deceived as it had been advertised as a memory test, not an obedience one: however, if
PPts were told that it was an obedience test, then demand characteristics would have had an
influence.
- Right to withdraw was manipulated through the verbal prods.
, Milgram’s variations: set out to investigate the situational factors that might encourage or discourage
dissent.
Rundown office block setting
Effect of environment on obedience: many PPTs said that the prestigious setting of the original study led
them to trust the integrity and competency of the study.
- Moved to a rundown building in downtown Bridgeport.
- PPTs were told that the experiment was run by a private firm conducting research for the
industry.
- 47.5% of PPTs were fully obedient.
- Interview transcripts show that the PPTs voiced their doubts about the legitimacy of the research
and their concerns for the learner’s safety.
- Concluded that prestigious context is an important situational factor that affects levels of
obedience.
- The shabby setting reduced the legitimacy of the researcher.
- HOWEVER: the link to scientific research seemed to be enough to still encourage high levels of
obedience.
Milgram collected by qualitative and quantitative data.
Modigliani and Rochat 1995: conducted a re-analysis of the transcripts and found that the earlier in the
procedure that the PPT challenged the experimenter, the less likely they were to be fully defiant.
Telephonic instructions
Immediacy and presence - experimenter gave the instructions over the phone.
- Only 9 of the 40 (22.5%) PPTs were fully obedient.
- PPTs lied on the phone, saying that they were raising the shock level when they were not, and
repeatedly administering the lowest shock.
- PPTs found it easier to resist authority in this passive way than openly challenging the authority
figure.
- When the experimenter came back into the room, defiant PPTs were obedient again.
- The presence of an authority figure is an important situational factor that increases obedience and
reduces dissent.
Subsequent research has replicated the same findings - i.e. Sedikides and Jackson’s Bronx zoo study.
Shows that Milgram’s results on physical proximity generalise well to other more naturalistic settings.
Ordinary man
Legitimacy and status - the authority figure leaves the room on a phone call and leaves the PPTs with a
confederate whose role was to record times from a clock.
- Once gone the recorder suggests that they should increase the shock by 15v at a time.
- 80% of PPTs refused to continue: orders must come from a legitimate source to be effective and
that status is an important situational factor.
Lacks internal validity - departure of the experimenter was awkward.
The Confederate then had derived authority which allowed them to be obeyed.
Suggests that obedience may be even lower in situations where the person giving the orders is completely
unrelated to an authority figure or institutional concept.
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