Social Psychology
Obedience
Unit one: Obedience
Key concepts
Candidates should be able to:
• distinguish between obedience and defiance;
• explain what is meant by the term ‘denial of responsibility’.
Core theory: theory of situational factors
Candidates should be able to:
• explain the effect of environment on obedience, ie setting, culture;
• explain the effect of authority and the power to punish on obedience;
• explain the effect of consensus on obedience;
• explain the criticisms of situational factors as an explanation of obedience;
Alternative theory: theory of dispositional factors
Candidates should be able to:
• consider dispositional factors as an alternative theory, with specific reference to the
role of the authoritarian personality in obedience.
Core study: Bickman (1974)
Candidates should be able to:
• describe Bickman’s field experiment into effects of uniform;
• outline limitations of Bickman’s study.
Application of research into obedience: keeping order in institutions and situations
Candidates should be able to:
• explain how psychological research relates to keeping order in institutions, eg use of
punishment in schools, use of authority in armed forces, effect of prison setting.
Key terms
Obedience
Following orders or commands, doing as you are told
Authority
A person who has a level of power or status
Defiance
Refusing to follow orders or commands, not doing as you are told
Denial of responsibility
Blaming actions on others, saying you did something because you were told to
do it
Core theory: Situational factors
Situational factors include the setting or environment, the authority of the person
giving the instruction, culture and consensus.
The following experiment is not the situational factors theory, but it can be used to
explain how environment and authority impact on obedience so it is useful to know.
Milgram asked volunteers to take part in a study about learning (it was really about
obedience). When the volunteers came to the laboratory, they were introduced to Mr
Wallace (a confederate), they then were assigned the role of teacher and learner (the
participant was always the teacher) by a research who was wearing a white lab coat.
The participant was then shown Mr Wallace being hooked up to an electric shock
generator and it was explained to them that they would have to read Mr Wallace a list
of word pairs, he would then have to match up the word pairs once he had been read
the whole list. If he got a pair wrong, the participant had to give him a shock (by
pressing a button in the connecting room). 65% of the participants gave Mr Wallace
shocks up to 450 volts even though it said ‘XXX’ next to it, all of the participants went
up to 300 volts.
Environment
Milgram’s study was carried out in a well-known American University in a smart
laboratory. He replicated his experiment in a rundown office block to see if the
setting (or environment) impacted on obedience. He found that when the experiment
was in the run down office block, only 47% of participants gave Mr Wallace shocks of
450 volts (compared to 65% in the university lab). This suggests that when we are in
nice surroundings, we are more likely to be obedient.
Authority
In Milgram’s study, the researcher was wearing a white lab coat, this gave them
authority over the participant. As the researcher gave the participant instructions and
encouraged them to continue with the experiment, their authority may have led to
obedience. Another study which shows the effect of authority was carried out by
Hofling. In this study, nurses in a hospital received a telephone call from a Dr. Smith
(there was no such doctor at the hospital, it was a made up name). Dr. Smith gave the
nurse who answered instructions to give a dose of medicine to a patient. 21 out of 22
nurses obeyed the instruction even though it went against hospital protocol (the doctor
should have filled out a paper form and the dose he asked the nurse to give was double
that stated on the bottle of the medicine). This shows that in a hospital setting, the
nurses followed the instruction because it came from a doctor who they felt had
authority over them.
There is thought to be a link between authority and the power to punish disobedience.
We are more likely to obey if we think we will be punished for disobeying.
Culture
Psychologists believe that people can be divided into two main cultures, individualist and
collectivist. Individualist cultures are societies where people are encouraged to be
independent and self reliant e.g. USA. Whilst collectivist cultures are societies in
which people share more tasks, belongings and income, they are often thought of as
societies where people live in larger family groups, e.g. India. Milgram carried out his
study in a number of countries and found that people who are from individualist
cultures are less likely to obey, this could be because they are encouraged from a young
age to think of their own needs and wants before others.
Consensus
Simply having other people around us may make us less likely to obey if they support
our decision. However, it has also been found that if other people are obeying, we are
likely to ‘follow the crowd’ and also obey. This can work either way depending on the
nature of the group we are in. Milgram investigated this by repeating his experiment
but including two more ‘participants’ (who were actually also confederates) who
purposefully disobeyed and refused to give Mr Wallace shocks. In this situation, only
10% of real participants shocked Mr Wallace up to 450 volts. This shows that support
from others can give us the confidence to disobey.
Criticisms
There are a number of limitations with situational factors theory
 A limitation of this theory is that it ignores the fact that people have
personalities. It suggests that the only things effecting whether or not we obey are
external factors (setting, authority of who’s asking etc). It may be the case that
some people are naturally more likely to obey than others. We all know of people who
will refuse to do as they are asked just because they have been asked to do
something!
 Another limitation is that most of the research this theory is based around has
very low ecological validity. Milgram’s experiment is not something that anyone would
ever be asked to do in day to day real life. This means that we could argue that they
results are not valid enough for us to base a theory. The study conducted by Hofling
has higher ecological validity as it was set in a real hospital, however it can still only
be applied to nurses.
 Lastly there are ethical problems with the research that this theory is based on.
Most of the research involved deceiving participants and some studies left
participants distressed. We would not be able to replicate these studies now.
Alternative theory: Dispositional factors
This theory suggests that it is a person’s personality that impacts on their
likelihood to obey. Adorno and his colleagues wanted to investigate why so many
Nazi soldiers obeyed during the Holocaust. They decided that there was such a
thing as a personality that made you more likely to obey. They tested this using the
f-scale (f=fascism) in which they asked people to rate how they felt about a number
of statements. He decided that people who scored highly on this scale had
authoritarian personalities.
People with authoritarian personalities are more likely (according to Adorno) to
 see things as being right or wrong (good or evil),
 be more prejudiced,
 dislike people from lower social classes,
 dislike uncertainty
 be willing to be bossed around by those with authority over them (to obey)
Adorno claimed that this stemmed from childhood and that these people were taught
to fear and obey authority from a young age.
If this is all confusing, just remember, people who have an authoritarian personality are
more likely to obey.
Core study: Bickman (1974)
Aim
To investigate if uniform (appearance) has an impact on obedience.
Procedure
This was a field experiment set on a street in Brooklyn, New York.
3 male confederates took it in turns to dress in 3 uniforms. A guard uniform (looked
like a policeman to us), a milkman’s uniform and civilian clothes which were a shirt,
jacket and tie.
They stood on the street one at a time and asked people who were walking past on their
own to do one of the following things. To pick up some litter, to put some money into a
parking meter for someone else, or to stand the other side of the bus stop.
In total, they asked 153 people.
Results
Bickman found that people were more likely to obey when the confederate was dressed
as a guard and were least likely to obey when the confederate was dressed as a civilian.
Conclusion
Certain types of uniform give the person wearing it authority. We are more likely to
obey someone if we feel that they may be able to punish us for disobeying.
Criticisms/Limitations
 There was a lack of control over the variables. Other factors such as crowds,
noise and weather may have impacted on peoples likelihood to obey.
 Participants were selected through opportunity sampling, anyone who walked along
the street on their own became a participant. We don’t know if people were in a rush,
having a bad day or thinking about something else. These things could have effected
whether or not someone obeyed. This also made the study unethical as participants
were not asked if they wanted to take part before they were included in the study.
 The confederates who gave the orders were all men. If women were wearing the
uniforms and asking passersby to do things, we may have different results. Being
male may have given the confederate more authority anyway.
 Lastly, the study was only carried out on one street in one city, perhaps people in
Brooklyn in New York are generally not as obedient as people in Bristol? We don’t
know, this makes the research culturally biased.
Applications of research: Keeping order in institutions and situations
Research has shown that there is an effect of authority on obedience, due to this,
many cultures and institutions have a hierarchy. A hierarchy is a structure of an
organisation, group or culture where the person at the top has the most authority and
individuals are likely to obey anyone above them. For example, in a supermarket, there
is the manager, then the assistant manager, then full time staff, then part time staff.
Everyone is more likely to obey the person above them and feel that they have some
kind of authority over those below them.
Prisons
It is important for order to be kept in prisons and there are a number of ways by which
this is done. Prisons have a very clear hierarchy, this is shown in the staffing, but also
amongst inmates. Uniforms are also used in order to keep order. Having uniforms for
staff enables them to be easily identifiable, their uniforms are much nicer and smarter
than those of inmates which gives them instant authority. However, by having inmates
in uniforms which take away their sense of identity, they may feel as though they could
be more defiant.
Punishments are also used in prisons to give guards authority. They have the power to
punish inmates if they do not obey.
Lastly, by keeping inmates isolated (even just in separate cells at night) it makes it
harder for them to form a consensus and encourage each other to disobey.
Armed forces
The armed forces also have a very clear hierarchy, this ensures that individuals know
who to look to for instruction. Uniforms are used again, as are punishments for those
who disobey.
School Again, all the same things are used in schools, there is a hierarchy, uniforms and
punishments. Some of these things are more effective than others. Try to have an
example ready for the exam.