Welcome to the topic of Obedience! In our daily lives, we follow instructions from teachers, police officers, and managers without a second thought. But what happens when an authority figure asks us to do something harmful?

What you'll learn:

• How situational factors like location, uniform, and physical distance affect obedience (based on Milgram’s famous research).
• The social-psychological explanations for obedience: the agentic state and legitimacy of authority.
• The dispositional (personality) explanation for obedience: the Authoritarian Personality.

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Setting the Scene: Milgram's Baseline Study (1963)

To understand this topic, you first need a quick grasp of Stanley Milgram’s classic baseline study. Milgram wanted to know why the German population obeyed Hitler's orders during the Holocaust.

He set up a lab experiment at Yale University where participants (naive volunteers) were told to act as a "Teacher". An experimenter in a grey lab coat ordered them to give increasingly severe electric shocks to a "Learner" (a confederate actor) in the next room every time they answered a memory question incorrectly. The shocks were fake, but the Teacher didn't know that.

The results shocked the world: 65% of participants continued all the way to the maximum 450 volts, even when the Learner screamed in agony and then fell completely silent.

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Situational Variables Affecting Obedience

Milgram didn't stop at the baseline study. He ran numerous variations to see how changing the situation (the environment or setup) changed obedience levels. He identified three key situational variables.

1. Proximity

Proximity refers to the physical distance between the authority figure, the person following orders, and the victim.

• Proximity variation: When the Teacher and Learner were placed in the same room, obedience dropped from 65% to 40%.
• Touch proximity: When the Teacher had to physically force the Learner's hand onto an "electroshock plate", obedience fell to 30%.
• Remote instruction: When the Experimenter left the room and gave orders by telephone, obedience dropped to 20.5%.

Why? Increased proximity allows the person to fully see the consequences of their actions, making it harder to mentally distance themselves from the harm they are causing.

2. Location

The original study took place in the prestigious labs of Yale University. This gave the study a strong sense of legitimacy.

• Location variation: Milgram moved the experiment to a run-down office block in a seedy part of town.
• Obedience fell to 47.5%.

Why? The prestigious university environment gave the experimenter more perceived authority. Without that backdrop, the participants felt less compelled to obey.

3. Uniform

In the baseline study, the Experimenter wore a grey lab coat—a symbol of scientific authority.

• Uniform variation: The Experimenter was called away for an "urgent telephone call" and was replaced by an "ordinary member of the public" (another confederate) wearing everyday clothes.
• Obedience plummeted to 20%—the lowest of all the variations.

Why? Uniforms are widely recognised symbols of legitimate authority (think of police officers or doctors). Without the uniform, the person giving orders has no right to expect our obedience.

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Social-Psychological Explanations

Now we look at why people obey. Social-psychological explanations focus on how the presence and status of others affect our mindset.

The Agentic State

Milgram proposed that we switch between two mental states when making decisions.

The movement from the autonomous state to the agentic state is called the agentic shift. Milgram suggested this occurs when we perceive someone else as a legitimate authority figure who has greater power because of their position in a social hierarchy.

But why do people stay in the agentic state, even when they realise they are doing something wrong? Milgram pointed to binding factors. These are aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour, reducing the "moral strain" they feel. For example, in Milgram's study, participants shifted responsibility to the victim ("He was foolish to volunteer") or denied the damage they were doing.

Legitimacy of Authority

We are taught from childhood to obey people who have authority over us (parents, teachers, police). This authority is "legitimate" because it is agreed by society; most of us accept that authority figures have to be allowed to exercise social power to keep society running smoothly.

However, this can lead to destructive authority. Problems arise when legitimate authority becomes destructive. History has shown that powerful leaders (like Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot) can use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes, ordering people to behave in callous, cruel, and dangerous ways.

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Dispositional Explanation: The Authoritarian Personality

Situational factors (the environment) and social-psychological factors (mindset and hierarchy) focus on the external world. But what if obedience comes from within? Dispositional explanations suggest obedience is caused by an individual's personality characteristics.

Theodor Adorno et al. (1950) wanted to understand the extreme anti-Semitism of the Holocaust. They suggested that unquestioning obedience is a psychological disorder, located in the personality.

Characteristics of the Authoritarian Personality

People with this personality type:

• Have an extreme respect for authority and submissiveness to it.
• Show contempt for people they perceive as having inferior social status.
• View society as "going to the dogs" and believe we need strong, powerful leaders to enforce traditional values (love of country, religion, and family).
• Are inflexible in their outlook—everything is either right or wrong (black-and-white thinking).

Origin of the Authoritarian Personality

Adorno theorised that this personality type forms in childhood, mostly as a result of harsh parenting. This parenting style features:

• Extremely strict discipline.
• An expectation of absolute loyalty.
• Impossibly high standards.
• Severe criticism of perceived failings.
• Conditional love (the parents' love depends entirely on how the child behaves).

This creates resentment and hostility in the child. Because the child cannot express these feelings directly against their parents (out of fear of punishment), the fears are displaced onto others who are perceived to be weaker. This is known as scapegoating.

The F-Scale

Adorno developed several scales to measure this, most notably the F-scale (Fascism scale). It contains statements such as "Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn". People who score highly on the F-scale are considered to have an Authoritarian Personality.

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Applying Theories to Scenarios (AO2)

In the exam, you will often be given a scenario (a "stem") and asked to apply psychological knowledge to it.

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