...Running Head: POWER OF SITUATION AND OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY The Power of the Situation in Milgram's Obedience Experiments Ahsan Chishty Ohlone College POWER OF SITUATION AND OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY The Power of the Situation in Milgram's Obedience Experiments Stanley Milgram is a name universally known for the Yale professor who shocked the world with his experiments on obedience. In 1961, Milgram along with many other colleagues devised an experiment after receiving a grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct an experiment in response to the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Milgram wanted to know if Germans under the rule of authority figures did exactly what they were instructed to do by those of higher power than them due to the fact that many of the explanations for the Nazi atrocities was simply that Nazi soldiers were following orders. After placing an ad in the New Haven Register for a learning experiment on the study of memory. According to Thomas Blass (2009), offering participants $4.50 and a paid bus fare for an hour of their time seemed to be the biggest factor that attracted people to the ad but several of the participants also agreed to be a part of the study to learn something about themselves, expand their curiosity about psychology, or because they were fascinated by memory and hoped to understand it better through an experiment like Milgram's. The subjects were introduced to a man in a lab coat who...
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...Running Head: Psychological and Motivational Factors Involved with Obedience Psychological and Motivational Factors Involved with Obedience Crimes The dynamics of obedience have been researched for decades in an attempt to explain what causes humans to commit atrocious acts such as the Holocaust and why crimes of obedience are so prevalent in society. Are all people capable of committing crimes of obedience given the right situation? Is there a certain disposition or combination of personality traits that leads to crimes of obedience? Situations are unique and dispositions vary; attempting to distinguish what causes these occurrences is a complex task that has been the subject of numerous studies, yet no concrete answers are found. Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments ignited the flame of a subject that, instead of diminishing over time and becoming obsolete as a result of improved methods and new ideologies, has remained at the forefront of social and behavioral psychology. Modern research faces the critical challenge of attempting to study obedience under much more restrictive guidelines than previous studies; the results that are produced can only hope to shed light on one component of obedience and use other studies to synthesize a more complete explanation. The predecessor to all of this modern research was the Milgram obedience experiment and all of its variations. It has remained a fixture of social psychology for so long for several reasons: the...
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...The experiment[edit] Milgram Experiment advertisement Three individuals were involved: the one running the experiment, the subject of the experiment (a volunteer), and a confederate pretending to be a volunteer. These three people fill three distinct roles: the Experimenter (an authoritative role), the professor (a role intended to obey the orders of the Experimenter), and the Learner (the recipient of stimulus from the Teacher). The subject and the actor both drew slips of paper to determine their roles, but unknown to the subject, both slips said "teacher". The actor would always claim to have drawn the slip that read "learner", thus guaranteeing that the subject would always be the "teacher". At this point, the "teacher" and "learner" were separated into different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. In one version of the experiment, the confederate was sure to mention to the participant that he had a heart condition.[1] The "teacher" was given an electric shock from the electro-shock generator as a sample of the shock that the "learner" would supposedly receive during the experiment. The "teacher" was then given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the learner. The teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. The learner would press a button to indicate his response. If the answer was incorrect, the teacher would administer a shock to...
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...demonstrate: • Knowledge and understanding of concepts, theories and studies in relation to individual differences • Skills of analysis, evaluation and application in relation to individual differences • Knowledge and understanding of research methods associated with this area of psychology • Knowledge and understanding of ethical issues associated with this area of psychology. |Content outline | |Social influence |Conformity (majority influence) and explanations of why people conform, including informational | | |social influence and normative social influence | | | | | |Types of conformity, including internalisation and compliance | | | | | |Obedience to authority, including Milgram’s work and explanations of why people obey | |Social...
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...Influences of Conformity and Obedience Jamie Tyler University of Phoenix Social Psychology Psych555 Prof. Kimberly Kinsey May 7, 2012 Influences of Conformity and Obedience “Social influence broadly encompasses any changes on beliefs, attitudes, or behavior that result from interpersonal interaction” (Fiske, 2010). There are several concepts that aid in the analysis of social influence. Two of these concepts are conformity and obedience. Conformity is the influence of the majority on an individual and obedience is the influence authority has on subordinates. Conformity and obedience are related in the fact that they both have the ability to persuade an individual or group of individuals to change his or her thoughts, actions, and behaviors, regarding a particular situation. Conformity and obedience are also related in that they can change the way individuals view others within a certain community, culture, ethnic group or environment. This paper will evaluate the effect of group influence on the self using both classical and contemporary literature, compare and contrast concepts of conformity and obedience and analyze individual and societal influences that lead to deviance from group norms. Conformity and obedience are important factors in groups because they command members of a group to follow societal norms. Conformity is a needed concept of social influence because it can enhance members of a group sense of belonging, as well as, self esteem. Conformity can be...
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...forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing. In 1958, Harvard psychologist, Herbert Kelman identified three broad varieties of social influence.[2] 1. Compliance is when people appear to agree with others, but actually keep their dissenting opinions private. 2. Identification is when people are influenced by someone who is liked and respected, such as a famous celebrity. 3. Internalization is when people accept a belief or behavior and agree both publicly and privately. Morton Deutsch and Harold Gerard described two psychological needs that lead humans to conform to the expectations of others. These include our need to be right (informational social influence), and our need to be liked (normative social influence).[3] Informational influence (or social proof) is an influence to accept information from another as evidence about reality. Informational influence comes into play when people are uncertain, either because stimuli are intrinsically ambiguous or because there is social disagreement. Normative influence is an influence to conform to the positive expectations of others. In terms of Kelman's typology, normative influence leads to public compliance, whereas informational influence leads to private acceptance. [edit] Types Social Influence is a broad term that relates to many different phenomena. Below are some major types of social influence that are being researched in the field...
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...when they thought the cameras were off, despite being picked by chance out of the same pool as the prisoners. The experiment very quickly got out of hand. A riot broke out on day two. One prisoner developed a psychosomatic rash all over his body upon finding out that his "parole" had been turned down. After only 6 days (of a planned two weeks), the experiment was shut down, for fear that one of the prisoners would be seriously hurt. Although the intent of the experiment was to examine captivity, its result has been used to demonstrate the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional support. It is also used to illustrate cognitive dissonance theory and the power of seniority/authority. How do findings from this study help you explain the torture of prisoners in Iraq? The human rights abuses that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison under the authority of the American armed forces in the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq war may be a recent example of what happened in the experiment in real life. Soldiers were...
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...Conceptual 1 According to Aronson’s analysis of the Challenger disaster, which of the following most likely did not contribute to the disaster? NASA engineers assured management that all safety measures had been taken. According to Aaronson’s theory of social behavior, people’s behaviors and personal beliefs tend to be greatly influenced by the society or the majorities beliefs. In the challenger disaster case, a lot of outside pressure was involved. Previous experiments such as the successful launch and landing of the first reusable space shuttle Columbia, had been conduced successfully hence NASA was inclined to think that those statistics were a testament for the outcome of the launch. Additionally, the challenger launch was one of its kind since it was the first to have an ordinary American, McAuliffe, on board. Also the program had taken a lot of time to materialize owing to the bad weather and the time needed to train McAuliffe on space travel. All this factors convinced NASA to bow to social psychology and let societal pressure influence their judgment despite clear warning from the engineers about the impending doom if temperature conditions were not favorable (Disaster, 2016). Applied This is a case of Internalization compliance. Though, the child does not like the lima beans, she does so because she believes that by doing so she will become like the figure she idolizes. In the Internalization type of conformity, subjects adopt a belief and make it their own...
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...In the case of the latter give the type of validity problem and EXPLAIN BRIEFLY. 1. Some students had too little time to do their exam and answered their questions too superficially. (1/2 pt) 2. One of the questions was ambiguous. It could be referring to the contents of the subject, but also to the contents of another subject. (1/2 pt) 3. Only a small portion of the content was checked in the exam. (1/2 pt) 4. The exam takes place within two hours. The design of a research usually takes weeks. The exam can therefore not really test the knowledge of research design as the two contexts fundamentally do not match PART II: Milgram’s study: 8 pts During the lectures we have looked at Milgram’s famous study. What we have seen there was a later version from the original. In the original version the subject could not hear the “learner”, just the pounding on the wall. Included you will find the larger part of the paper describing the original experiment1. The paper is mostly a concise description of the research setting. Obviously, it should help that you have watched the video, since it will allow you to understand the paper much more easily. I advice you to read the questions below first, before diving into the paper. Please answer the following questions: A. Characterize the research in terms of general scientific approach, whether it is meant to test or to develop theory. Explain (1pt.) B. Milgram does not list the research question. What could be the research question (and possibly...
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...purchasing this book for AQA Psychology Psya2 (Paper 2). A bit about me: My name is Sajan Devshi and I was a private student that self-taught myself AQA Psychology from 2011-2012 and I received my certificate in January 2013 Achieving an A* Grade. The certificate you can view on my website http://www.loopa.co.uk - You can also get my other A* model essay answers from there too for the other topics I did. I achieved an A* grade overall scoring two A’s in Psya1 and Psya2 as well as 100% in both my A2 exams (Psya3 and Psya4) My final score was 373/400 ums points. (You only needed 90% in A2 and 320 for an A* grade). So basically I didn’t just beat the boundary - I absolutely smashed it. How did I do it? It wasn’t easy and I am by no means some savant genius. I made great notes and essays that simplified things for me as I had no teachers and it is these notes I share with you now for Psya2 and the essay questions that can be asked for it. If your curious to know more about me you can visit my website at http://www.loopa.co.uk There it tells you more about me, how I self-taught myself as well as contact me directly for help and advice as well as get my other essay answers there instantly. Theres also great resources there too with more added on a weekly basis. You can also follow me on twitter to stay up to date on future resources and books. My username is: SajDevshi Again thank you for your support and I wish you the very best in your exams! Now - Lets get this show started...
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...laboratory experiments, cause and effect conclusions can be drawn * Careful controls mean they are replicable so can be tested for reliability – if carried out again and findings are similar, then it is likely to be reliable * Good controls mean there should be few confounding variables, so experiment is objective (e.g. there should be no subjectivity from the experimenter’s interventions and interpretations) and scientific * By isolating variables, the situation is not as in ‘real life’ so findings are not likely to be valid * Laboratory experiments usually lack validity of the task and therefore are not representative of true behaviour Milgram (1963) Study of Obedience Aim: To see whether people would obey and inflict harm on each another person using electric shocks, by following the orders of an authority figure. This was to see whether all individuals had the potential to cause harm like the Germans and the Nazi’s or if they were different. Procedure: A volunteer sample was recruited by placing an advert in a newspaper offering a $400 reward and travelling expenses. 40 male participants took part and were introduced to who they believed to be another pp (confederate). In a rigged draw the pp was allocated the role of teacher in an experiment they were told was about human learning and memory....
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...considered socially acceptable .When an individual is influenced by how the majority of people think this is considered socially acceptable Conformity is a form of social influence that results from exposure to the majority position , the tendency for people to adopt the behaviour, attitudes and values of other members of a reference groups, This was a study of conformity in an ambiguous situation ‘unclear’. Jenness asked students to guess how many beans there were in a jar,they were then asked to discuss in groups. Lastly they were asked to give their estimates again, individuals estimates tended to converge to the group norm.It seems reasonable that when in an ambiguous situation (were the answer isn't obvious ) we look to others to get some ideas about behaviour . Jenness's research is limited as he specifically asked participants to produce a group estimate rather than just observing if they would produce group estimates. Sherif conducted a similar investigation into responses to an ambiguous stimulus using the auto kinetic effect ( this is where a stationary spot of light projected on to a screen appears to move) Sherif told participants he was going to move the light , he asked the pp’s to estimate by how far the spotlight had moved. All pp’s were initially asked individually. Next they were asked to work with 3 others who had given very different estimates.After discussion each pp was then asked to give an individual answer again. Estimates become quite similar to...
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...Contributions to Society For each of the 5 approaches from AS you must know 2 ways in which it has contributed (been useful) to society. For Child, Criminology and Clinical you must know one contribution from each. For many of the approaches this can be therapies that are used for treating different behaviours. Social 1. Understanding Prejudice · Social approach helps us to understand why prejudice occurs. · SIT explains that prejudice occurs by simply belonging to a group– we belong to an in group and those not part of this are considered the out group. We categorise into these groups and identify with in group members by the beliefs we have and what we wear. In order to make our in group look good we display in group favouritism and show a preference for our in group and seeing their behaviours in a positive light. The behaviour of the out group we put down, and this boosts the in group self-esteem. · Realistic conflict theory suggests prejudice between groups occurs when there is competition for resources, and that it is not simply belonging to a group. This can explain why many groups can live alongside each other in harmony, which SIT cannot explain. · An example of SIT in action is football fans as they categorise themselves into teams e.g. either Man U or Chelsea and wear team colours e.g. red or blue. When these teams play they will call the fans of the rival team names to raise their own teams self-esteem. · Prejudice can account for a...
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...CHAPTER 7 DEVIANCE AND SOCIAL CONTROL Deviance 171 Social Policy and Social Control: Illicit Drug Use in Canada and Worldwide 193 What Is Deviance? 171 Explaining Deviance 175 Social Control 182 Conformity and Obedience 182 Informal and Formal Social Control Law and Society 186 Crime 185 187 Types of Crime 188 Crime Statistics 190 The Issue 193 The Setting 193 Sociological Insights 193 Policy Initiatives 193 Boxes RESEARCH IN ACTION: Street Kids 183 sOCIOLOGY IN THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY: Singapore: A Nation of Campaigns 186 TAKING SOCIOLOGY TO WORK: Holly Johnson, Chief of Research, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada 192 Cigarette smoking has become stigmatized in Canada. This newspaper advertisement, sponsored by Health Canada, reverses the typical advertising strategy of equating smoking with sexiness. 169 H eidi Fleiss was in her late twenties when she was arrested for operating a call girl service. At the time, her pediatrician father had reacted flippantly, “I guess I didn’t do such a good job on Heidi after all.” Later, he would be convicted of conspiring to hide profits from his daughter’s call girl ring. Fleiss had dropped out of school when she was sixteen and established a liaison with a playboyfinancier who gave her a Rolls-Royce for her twenty-first birthday. In her early twenties, Fleiss interned in the world of prostitution by working for Madame Alex (Elizabeth Adams)...
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...Influence tactics - one person’s actual behaviors designed to change another person’s attitudes, beliefs, values, or behaviors. Whereas power is the capacity to cause change, influence is the degree of actual change in a target person’s attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors. Two types of Power: 1. Position power: power given to you by an organization 2. Personal power: power that you bring to the table: 1) Expert power – power of knowledge 2) Referent power – has to do with relations you have with your targets. Five Social bases of Power: (French and Raven) Expert power is the power of knowledge. Some people can influence others through their relative expertise in particular areas. A surgeon may wield considerable influence in a hospital because others depend on her knowledge, skill, and judgment, even though she may have no formal authority over them. For example, new leaders often know less about the jobs and tasks performed in a particular work unit than the followers do, and in this case the followers can potentially wield considerable influence when decisions are made regarding work procedures, new equipment, or the hiring of additional workers. So long as different followers have considerably greater amounts of expert power, it will be difficult for a leader to influence the work unit on the basis of expert power alone. Referent power refers to the potential influence one has due to the strength of the relation- ship between the leader and the followers...
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