Obedience
What is obedience?
What was the role of the participant in Milgram's experiment?
The teacher (there are three roles: the experimenter, the teacher, and the learner)
What was Zimbardo's initial purpose for the study?
To find out if the brutality among prison guards was due to situational factors (external factors) rather than dispositional elements (internal factors).
What is conformity?
Yielding to group/social pressure.
what three factors influence obedience
1. Proximity of authority figure
2. Prestige of authority figure
3. Deindividuation
Based on the conclusion of the experiment, what factors are likely to influence obedience?
Proximity to the authority figure, prestige/legitimacy of the authority figure, deindividuation. (Oops)
How many participants were in the study?
24 males were screened and randomly allocated to either be "prisoners" or "guards" and were transported to the basement of the Stanford prison (mock prison).
What are the three types of conformity and explain whether they are short-term or long-term
Compliance: publicly changing behaviour without changing minds privately, usually short-term.
Identification: taking on the views of individuals/groups (both behaviour and beliefs) only in their presence, this is a short-term change.
Internalisation: true change of beliefs and behaviour, this is long-term.
Darwin High School has introduced a new mobile phone policy. This policy requires students to turn off their phones when they arrive at school. However, some students do not follow this policy.
Using obedience, explain one reason why some students act this way.
Proximity: teacher may not be close to them, therefore, they continue to use their phone.
Legitimacy: teacher (or susbtitute teacher) is not high enough, compared to the principal. Thus, student does not feel compelled to follow the policy around their teacher (or susbtitute teacher).
Deindividuation: class setting, therefore, surrounded by a group and does not want to obey.
What was Milgram's aim for the study?
Originally aimed to examine the reasons behind the Germans obedience towards Hitler, whether they are an "obedient nation" or if anyone is capable of this type of obedience despite the orders going against their morals.
What ethical concerns are tied with the concept of deindividuation of Zimbardo's experiment, elaborate for each ethical concerns?
Deception, informed consent, right to withdraw, debriefing, privacy.
What changes occur in response to conformity?
Real (from those around you e.g. peers) and imaginary (social expectations) group pressure.
Define deindividuation and explain how the size of the group affects the incidence of deindividuation.
Deindividuation means to lose your individuality, including being able to think and make decisions for yourself, and instead going with the group's behaviour (such as group think).
The larger the group, the higher the incidence of deindividuation.
What percentage of people reached up to the maximum volts during Milgram's Shock experiment?
65% (hahahahahah)
How long was the study intended to go for? And how long did it really last?
Original time length: 14 days
Stopped by the 6th day.
What three factors influence conformity?
Normative Social Influence
Informational Social Influence
Individual Differences
What happens when the participants refused to administer the shocks?
The experimenter gave verbal prods, such as:
What are the eight factors affecting conformity? (if you can name two you get 200 points, but if you can name all nine you get an extra 50 (total=550))
Anonymity
Status of Majority group/individual
Lack of unanimity
Difficulty of task
Answers in private
Cultural factors
Personality traits
Individual differences