Factors Affecting Obedience

Specification

Factors affecting obedience and dissent/resistance to obedience, including individual differences (personality and gender), situation and culture.

Personality

Authoritarian Personality

Psychologists have examined dispositional (internal) factors that also contribute to obedience. One particular characteristic is the authoritarian personality, which has been associated with higher levels of obedience.

Adorno et al. (1950) developed a questionnaire called the California F scale, to measure levels of authoritarian personality. In Milgram’s original research, psychologists questioned whether the obedience occurred due to situational factors, for example, uniform and location, or dispositional factors, such as a particular personality characteristic. In order to answer this question, Milgram conducted a follow-up study, using participants from his original research.

Elms and Milgram (1966) wanted to see if the obedient participants in Milgram’s research were more likely to display authoritarian personality traits, in comparison to disobedient participants. Their sample consisted of 20 obedient participants, who administered the full 450 volts and 20 disobedient participants, who refused to continue. Each participant completed several personality questionnaires, including Adorno’s F scale, to measure their level of authoritarian personality. In addition, participants were also asked open-ended questions about their relationship with their parents and their relationship with the experimenter and learner, during Milgram’s experiment.

Elms and Milgram found that the obedient participants scored higher on the F scale, in comparison to disobedient participants. In addition, the results also revealed that obedient participants were less close to their fathers during childhood [all of the participants in Milgram’s original experiment were male] and admired the experimenter in Milgram’s experiment, which was the opposite for disobedient participants. Elms and Milgram concluded that the obedient participants in his original research displayed higher levels of the authoritarian personality, in comparison to disobedient participants.

Evaluation

Although the results of Elms and Milgram suggest a link between authoritarian personality and obedience, these results are correctional and it is therefore difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about the exact cause of the obedience. In addition, there are many other situational factors that contribute to obedience, including proximity, uniform and location. Therefore, although it is likely that authoritarian personality contributes to obedience, a range of situational variables can affect the level of this contribution.

Furthermore, research by Middendorp and Meleon (1990) found that less-educated people are more likely to display authoritarian personality characteristics, than well-educated people. If these claims are correct then it is possible to conclude that it is not authoritarian personality characteristics that lead to obedience, but levels of education.

Finally, Elms and Milgram used Adorno’s F scale to determine levels of authoritarian personality. It is possible that the F scale suffers from response bias or social desirability, where participants provide answers that are socially acceptable. For example, participants may appear more authoritarian because they believe that their answers are the socially ‘correct’ and consequently they are incorrectly classified as authoritarian when they are not.

Locus of Control

In some cases people can resist the pressure to conform or obey because of their personality. Rotter (1966) proposed the idea of locus of control, which is the extent to which people believe they have control over their own lives.

People with an internal locus of control believe that what happens in their life is largely the result of their own behaviour and that they have control over their life. Whereas people with an external locus of control believe that what happens to them is controlled by external factors and that they do not have complete control over their life.

Consequently, Rotter suggested that individuals with an internal locus of control are more likely to resist the pressures to conform or obey, in comparison to individuals with an external locus of control.

Evaluation

Research supports the idea that individuals with an internal locus of control are more likely to resist the pressure to obey. Oliner & Oliner (1998) interviewed non-Jewish survivors of WWII and compared those who had resisted orders and protected Jewish people from the Nazi’s, in comparison to those who had not. Oliner and Oliner found that the 406 ‘rescuers’, who had resisted orders, were more likely to have a high internal locus of control, in comparison to the 126 people who had simply followed orders. These results appear to support the idea that a high internal locus of control makes individuals less likely to follow orders, although there are many other factors that may have caused individuals to follow orders in WWII and it is difficult to conclude that locus of control is the only factor.

Gender

In Milgram's experiment 8 however, which used females only, Milgram’s findings were exactly the same as the initial study in 1963. Females also showed an obedience rate of 65% just like the males. However, there were some differences in the qualitative data, i.e. what Milgram observed and noted about how they interacted with the experimenter and the learner.

He also found some differences in the rates of tension that he recorded in the post-study questionnaires. Milgram noticed that his females participants seemed more agitated by what they were doing and experienced higher levels of tension, he perceived that they felt more empathy for the learner which increased their levels of anxiety and that they found it harder to defy the male experimenter, due to their gender. However, these are Milgram’s perceptions as a male researcher. Maybe, he is displaying alpha bias here, maybe he is seeing gender differences where there are none. It may also not be right to assume that males do not feel as much empathy for the learner simply because they do not show it as readily in their observable behaviour.

Evaluation

Recent researchers looking at Milgram's archival data have discovered that the experimenter used many more than the 4 prompts for quite a few female participants, which affects the validity of the data that was collected. Many females had a more reduced right to withdraw, since they were only allowed to leave after up to 9 prompts.

Culture

Milgram's obedience studies were all on Americans. America is a Western culture which values individualism particularly highly; it is also a democratic culture with relatively little deference (although American culture in the 1960s was more deferential than it is today). Furthermore, face-saving or shame does not play a big part in American culture.

Because of this, we might expect obedience levels to be higher in many other cultures, but perhaps lower in cultures even less deferential and even more individualistic than the USA.

Cross-cultural studies investigate this by replicating American studies like Milgram's in other countries and comparing the results to Milgram's original (baseline) findings.

In the UK, South Africa, Spain and Austria, replications found 50-87.5 % of participants were fully obedient. This supports Milgram's results, where 65% of participants were fully obedient. The results of cross-cultural studies are summed up below:

When viewed cross-culturally, the American participants seem to have quite low levels of obedience. Thomas Blass, a psychologist and Holocaust survivor who has written books on Milgram, calculates the mean obedience for US studies to be 61% and the rest of the world to be 66% (Blass, 2002).

Kilham & Mann (1974) stands out, with an overall obedience level among Australians of 28%, less than half of Milgram's baseline 65%. Are the Australians really fierce individualists who don't defer to authority?

Evaluation

Not all of this research is consistent. Shanab & Yahya (1978) showed that Jordanian participants were just as obedient as Milgram's American participants - but (perhaps without meaning to) they also showed that 1/8 participants were willing to kill without any authority figure at all! Since almost all the research into obedience is from America and Europe, there need to be more replications in Africa and Asia to produce valid cross-cultural findings. However, the ethical problems with Milgram's procedures and the spread of rigorous Ethical Codes in Psychology make it unlikely there will be many more obedience studies in the future.

A weakness of cultural explanations for obedience is that, in general, most nations around the world return similarly high levels of obedience (see Blass' finding above).

Situation

Proximity

In Milgram’s original research the teacher and the learner were in separate rooms. In order to test the power of proximity, Milgram conducted a variation where the teacher and learner where seated in the same room. In this variation the percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts dropped from 65% to 40%. Here obedience levels fell, as the teacher was able to experience the learner’s pain more directly. In another variation, the teacher had to force the learner’s hand directly onto the shock plate. In this more extreme variation, the percentage dropped even further, to 30%. In these two variations, the closer the proximity of the teacher and learner, the lower the level of obedience.

The proximity of the authority figure also affects the level of obedience. In one variation, after the experimenter had given the initial instructions they left the room. All subsequent instructions were provided over the phone. In this variation participants were more likely to defy the experimenter and only 21% of the participants administers the full 450 volts.

Location

Milgram’s conducted his original research in a laboratory of Yale University. In order to test the power of the location, Milgram conducted a variation in a run down building in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The experiment was no longer associated with Yale University and was carried out by the Research Association of Bridgeport. In this variation the percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts dropped from 65% to 47.5%. This highlights the impact of location on obedience, with less credible locations resulting in a reduction in the level of obedience.

Uniform

In most of Milgram’s variations the experimenter wore a lab coat, indicating his status as a University Professor. Milgram examined the power of uniform in a variation where the experimenter was called away and replaced by another ‘participant’ in ordinary clothes, who was in fact another confederate. In this variation, the man in ordinary clothes came up with the idea of increasing the voltage every time the leaner made a mistake. The percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts when being instructed by an ordinary man, dropped from 65% to 20%, demonstrating the dramatic power of uniform.

Bickman (1974) also investigated the power of uniform in a field experiment conducted in New York. Bickman used three male actors: one dressed as a milkman; one dressed as a security guard; and one dressed in ordinary clothes. The actors asked members of the public to following one of three instructions: pick up a bag; give someone money for a parking metre; and stand on the other side of a bus stop sign which said ‘no standing’.

On average the guard was obeyed on 76% of occasions, the milkman on 47% and the pedestrian on 30%. These results all suggest that people are more likely to obey, when instructed by someone wearing a uniform. This is because the uniform infers a sense of legitimate authority and power.

Past Paper Questions

2 Markers

Jakob replicated his study but he gave instructions by telephone to nurses. In this variation only four out of 30 nurses followed the instructions. Explain one reason why only four nurses obeyed the doctor’s instructions in this variation. (2) January 2017
Explain one individual difference that could affect whether someone is obedient. (2) October 2017

8 Marker

Discuss how obedience factors could explain why Riya has been successful at work. (8) January 2019

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