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Go back the way you came and take a different route.

Go back the way you came and take a different route. Let me have a look in the boot of your car. Give me £10 from your purse. Today’s session. Explaining obedience. Agency theory Authoritarian personality theory. Agency theory. A situational explanation of obedience

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Go back the way you came and take a different route.

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  1. Go back the way you came and take a different route. Let me have a look in the boot of your car Give me £10 from your purse.

  2. Today’s session

  3. Explaining obedience • Agency theory • Authoritarian personality theory

  4. Agency theory • A situational explanation of obedience • People have two ways of acting • Autonomous –direct own behaviour, and take responsibility for consequences • Agentic –allow someone else to direct their behaviour, pass responsibility to them • People are conditioned to respond to certain types of cue with agentic behaviour

  5. What sorts of cue might produce agentic behaviour? • When and where do we learn to respond to such cues agentically?

  6. Evidence for agency theory • Studies have demonstrated agentic behaviour when… • Authority explicitly takes responsibility (Milgram, 1963) • Authority is wearing a uniform (Bickman, 1974) • Authority claims/appears to have higher status than PP (Hofling et al, 1966)

  7. Authoritarian personality • A dispositional explanation of obedience • Adorno (1950) claims a particular personality type (authoritarian) is more likely to obey an authority • Authoritarian traits: • Status oriented • Conventional and conformist • Suspicious & hostile

  8. Harsh and punitive upbringing; little love, much punishment Fear of parents Hatred of parents Authoritarian personality Excessively respectful of authority figures Hate & anger displaced onto others Based on Sigmund Freud’s idea that the adult personality is determined by childhood experiences

  9. Does Milgram’s study suggest that obedience is confined to a particular personality type? • How far do you accept that there may be a personality type that makes people more likely to obey an authority figure?

  10. Low SES & poor education Authoritarian personality High F-Scale score High obedience to authority Hyman & Sheatsley (1954)

  11. Authoritarian personality • Authoritarianism is linked to having right-wing political views. Are only right-wing people obedient to authority?

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