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Explore why people obey authority figures through dispositional factors like authoritarian personality and agency theory, alongside situational aspects like legitimate authority and gradual commitment. Discover how buffers and resisting pressures play into obedience. Get insights from renowned studies like Milgram's obedience experiment.
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Personality Unlike situational factors, dispositional factors have been proposed. Authoritarian personality- an authoritarian person has rigid beliefs, is intolerant of uncertainty or change, hostile to minorities but submissive to those in authority.
Psychopathic Personality • Miale and Selzer (1975) claimed that the obedience of Milgram’s participants was a socially acceptable expression of their psychopathic impulses • Milgram refutes this and remined us that when participants selected lower voltages when given the option
Legitimate Authority- We feel obliged to those in power because we respect their credentials and assume they know what they are doing. Legitimate social power is held by authority figures whose role is defined by society. This usually gives the person in authority the right to exert control over the behaviour of others, and others usually accept.
Agency theory- The agency theory states that people work on two levels: As autonomous individuals- people behave voluntarily and are aware of the consequences of their actions On the agentic level- seeing themselves as agents of others and not responsible for their actions. The consequence of moving from the autonomous to the agentic level is that individuals attribute responsibility for their actions to the person in authority
Agency theory cont • Obedience is part of the socialisation process • Fear of appearing rude and fear of increasing anxiety levels are known as binding factors and help to keep people in the Agentic state
Gradual Commitment- also known as the ‘Foot in the door’ technique. Once people comply with a trivial, seemingly harmless, request they find it difficult to refuse to carry out more serious, escalating requests. This is explained by the desire to appear consistent.
Buffers- The term buffer is used to describe any aspect of a situation that protects people from having to confront the consequences of their actions
Resisting Pressures to obey • People resist obedience when: • They feel responsible for their own actions • When they observe others being disobedient
By questioning motives • When they have time to think about what they have been asked to do
