(Psy) Explanations of Obedience

So, this is a new concept I am looking at bringing into my blog. I have recently being discussing with some of my readers about other things that I could feature in Citta Ancorata this year and one idea I decided to run with is topics that I am learning in my college classes and any work I produce posting online for anybody who wishes to read it. I have previously featured one of my creative pieces I had written for English, so why not the interesting topics that I learn about in sociology, psychology or my independent learning product. I am kicking this off with my 'explanations of obedience' essay that I had written for one of my Psychology classes, represented by the '(Psy)'. [ Sociology will be '(Soc)', English ('Eng') and my independent project '(EPQ)' ]

Simple enough, so let's jump right in and leave me comments as to what you think...

I will also be using this picture for all college related posts (: 

A common question that has been the focus of numerous psychologists, including that of Stanley Milgram is quite simply looking for the answer in order to explain what psychological processes take place when people follow the orders of an authority figure.

The Agentic State

In regards to the explanation of obedience it can be explained into one of four different theories, one of which being that of the agentic state. This particular concept from Milgram identified as the moment in which a person considers themselves to be an agent that carries out the orders of a superior, with the common belief of these obedient individuals being that they hold no direct responsibility to the actions that they commit. As opposed to a person of an autonomous, free-thinking state, people allow others to make decisions on their behalf, and fall into what is referred to as the ‘agentic state’.

Milgram believed that this idea best explained his findings from his experiment in 1963. During his study he enlisted the help of forty participants at a time over a series of conditions, each of which adapted the situation slightly in order to understand fully the effects that it has on obedience. Acknowledging that people can switch between the states, the transition to the autonomous state was most apparent in two particular variations of his study.

In the first example of this the factor that adjusted was the increase of the teacher’s discretion, whereas in the original study the voltage steadily augmented, this adaptation allowed the participant to decide themselves as to what voltage was exposed to the learner. As opposed to the original studies sixty-five per cent of people who continued to four-hundred-and-fifty volts, in this case it was only one person with ninety-five percent of people stopping at the learner’s first protest. These results suggest that when people are aware that they hold responsibility they refrain from causing the person damage as they return to the autonomous state, realising their role in the consequences.

Another example of this being the time in which the proximity of the authority figure was adjusted, in this variation the experimenter was absent and rang through the instructions instead of sitting metres away from the teacher. This adjustment resulted in people deceiving the experimenter, informing him that they were continuing to give shocks when they weren’t. Similar to the first example they realized their responsibility and therefore refrained from causing the learner any long-term harm, feeling that it would be due to their actions.

This particular explanation of obedience can be seen in history as well as in laboratory experiments as such as Milgram’s electric shock experiment, an obvious example of this throughout history is the Holocaust with officers as such as Adolf Eichmann stating that he was just ‘following orders’. However, Milgram’s personal link to history regarded the agentic state was the My Lai Massacre in which Lt William Calley refused to accept responsibility stating that he was following the orders of his superior officer, Capt. Ernest Medina.

Legitimate Authority

An additional explanation of obedience is legitimate authority which is used to explain the reasons as to why we obey an authority figure, stating reasons as such as the trust we put into them and the fear that they can punish us for not following their instructions. This can be linked to the agentic state as it is essential for an individual to feel that the person of authority is legitimate for them to therefore take it upon themselves to follow their orders.

This is similar to the fact that the experimenter in Milgram’s experiment was dressed in the typical attire associated with that of a scientist which instilled a sense of authority initially. However, a variation of his experiment clarified the important of a legitimate authority. This particular adjustment involved the location in which the experiment took place being moved from a laboratory at the Yale University to a dilapidated office in Bridgeport, Conneticut which had no links to Yale. Despite the fact that the percentage only dropped by seventeen per cent it still shows the importance of legitimate authority and how it effects obedience.

An additional example of this is Bickman’s study in 1974, which showed that people were much more willing to pay for somebody’s parking fine when instructed to by a man in a guard’s uniform as opposed to somebody wearing typical civilian clothing. This verifies this particular explanation of obedience as people would refrain from doing something due to the lack of authority a fellow civilian has over another as opposed to a guard due to the fact that they could potentially offer a negative consequence for not following the orders.

Bibliography

Cardwell, Mike & Flanagan, Cara (2015). Psychology A Level Year 1 and AS: The Complete Companion Student Book. 4th ed. Glasgow: Oxford University Press. p24-27.

PsychTeacher. Explanations for obedience to authority. Available: http://www.psychteacher.co.uk/social-influence/obedience-explanations.html. Last accessed 13th Oct 2015.