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social influence a03, Obedience may be caused by certain aspects of human…
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- Obedience may be caused by certain aspects of human nature, as shown by Zimbardo as the guards may have used the situation to express their sadistic tendencies as the guards rapidly escalated in cruelty even though there was no authority figure telling them to. It debatable whether it is just plain cruelty or agentic state
this suggests for some people obedience can be explained by agentic shift but for others it may be because they have a fundamental desire to inflict harm on others
- The agentic state is more likely in a situation where the individual experiences a loss of control (fennis and aarts) 2012 in these circumstances people may accept other external sources of control to compensate for this. This leads to greater obedience in authority as well as bystander empathy, the tendency to remain passive in presence of unresponsive others.
this suggests that agentic shift is not confined to to obedience to authority by to other types of social influence as well.
- the consequences of legitimacy of authority and real life obedience
as legitimacy can serve as the basis for the justification of harming others, when people let other people make judgement for them what is the appropriate conduct they lose their own moral values. as a result when ordered to do potentially harmful things people are more likely to obey
- a test of legitimacy of authority
Tarnow(2000) tested this through a study of aviation students, he studied data from the US national transportation safety board, he looked into aircraft accidents between 1978 to 1990 where a black box has been available and crew actions where a factor in the accidents
Tarnow found excessive dependence on the captains authority, with consequences
- Adorno used a biased sample, he only used 2000 middle class white Americans who are more likely to have a more authoritarian personality due to demographic and the time of the study. research lacks population validity and historical validity, conclusions cannot be generalised
- millions of people in Germany displayed obedient behaviour but all didn't have the same personality, as its unlikely all of Germanys population possessed a authoritarian personality, an alternative explanation could be the social identity theory, people identify with group they are apart with and discriminate ones they are not
- the high levels from Milgram's study was not surprising. Fromm suggests that the obedience rate of 65 was because Milgram's subjects knew they were apart of a scientific experiment, as the lab setting was a prestigious institution in western cultures. Yet experiments cannot be compared to real life obedience to authority as its more difficult to achieve and time consuming such as the genocide in rwanda in 1994 this required years of manipulations and systematic desensitisation.
- proximity, reserve police battalion 101
mandel challenges the relevance of obedience research as a explanation of real life
in 1942 police carried out orders to do a mass killing of Jews, the commanding officer made an offer for other duties. Despite the presence of factors Milgram said would increase defiance (close proximity to their victims and presence of disobedient peers, the vast majority carried out the orders'
social support in the real world, the Rosen Strasse protest
in 1943, a group of German women protested against the Nazi police as they were holding Jewish men. Despite the police threatening to open fire on them the women stayed put. Milgram found that the presence of disobedient peers gave the participant courage to resist authority figures.
research support in social support enabling teen to resist conformity
Rees and Wallace found individuals who had friends who drank alcohol were more likely to have participated in drinking in the previous 12 months, however when they had a friend who also resisted drinking they were more likely to able resist the pressures
consistent with Asch's research, shows the importance of social support even when faced with the conformity pressures of the majority
- Spector 1983 found that locus of control is related to normative social influence but not informational. He studied 157 undergraduate students, he found a sig correlation between externals and NSI, as externals are more likely to conform. but he didn't find a relationship between to ISI
- Research suggests a historical trend in locus of control, as young people are being increasing external. Twenge's meta analysis suggests that more young Americas believed their fate is up to luck. in student and child samples ranging 42 years they found locus of control scores where becoming more external.
Twenge suggests this is because of isolation and detachment experienced by young people in the modern age.
- one strength is research evidence demonstrating the importance of consistency, Moscovici blue/green slide study, showed that consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing views on other people. Wood et all conducted a meta analysis of 100 studies and found minorities who where consistent were the most influential.
Moscovici task is artificial, the findings of most minority influence study's lack external validity as does not tell us much about real life social situations. as in cases such as jury decision making and political campaigning the consequences are much more detrimental such as life or death