Psychology - Obedience

In this video, we're learning about obedience. So we'll cover what obedience is, experimental evidence for obedience, with a focus on Milgram's 1963 study, and finally, why we obey authority figures. Let's start by understanding what obedience is. We use the term obedience to describe when someone follows a direct order from a person who has authority over them. This authority figure is typically someone we see as having Before we go any further, it's important to understand the key differences between obedience and conformity. Although both involve changing our behaviour in response to others, the source of social influence is what sets them apart. Conformity involves changing our behaviour to match a group of equals, while obedience involves following direct orders from someone who holds a position of power. With conformity, the pressure to change is often implicit, meaning it's unspoken and comes from wanting to fit in or be accepted by our peers. With obedience, though, the pressure is explicit, meaning there's a clear instruction being given by an authority figure who expects us to comply. Next, let's cover some of the experimental evidence for obedience by looking at a famous study conducted by Milgram in 1963. In the study, there are three main roles we need to know about. The experimenter, and then also a learner and a teacher. The experimenter was the one running the study. They wore a lab coat and gave instructions. The learner was a confederate of the experimenter. They pretended to be a participant, but were actually part of the experimenter's research team. Then the teacher was the real participant. They believed that both they and the learner were randomly assigned to their roles, but in reality, the assignment was rigged so that the confederate was always the learner. Throughout the experiment, the teacher read out word pairs to the learner, and then tested whether the learner could remember them. Every time the However, no actual shocks were being given. The confederate learner was simply acting. And with each wrong answer, the voltage increased, starting at 15 volts and going all the way up to 450 volts. Despite this, the participants who took on the role of teachers genuinely believed they were delivering real and increasingly painful electric shocks. As the shocks increased, the learner would cry out in pain, bang on the wall, and eventually fall silent. When participants hesitated or wanted to stop, the experimenter would use verbal prods, such as please continue, or the experiment requires that you continue. Even though the teachers showed signs of extreme stress, 65% of them continued all the way to the maximum 450 volt shock when instructed to do so, which was far higher than the 1-3% that researchers had predicted. This demonstrated that the situation people find themselves in can be more powerful than their individual personality or character, and that ordinary people can be led to perform actions that seem to go against their moral values, simply because they're following orders from someone they think has legitimate authority. A key limitation of Milgram's study is that it raises significant ethical concerns, as participants experienced considerable distress believing they were harming another person. Additionally, the artificial laboratory setting may mean that participants likely behaved differently than they would in real life, which limits the ecological validity of the findings. This means we should take the results with a pinch of salt when considering how people might respond to authority figures in everyday situations. Finally, let's explore why we obey authority figures, and there are three main explanations for this. The agentic state, the legitimacy of authority, and situational factors. Starting with the agentic state, this refers to a mental state where a person sees themselves as an agent carrying out someone else's wishes, rather than acting on their own free will. When we enter an agentic state, we shift responsibility for our actions onto the authority figure giving the orders. In Milgram's study, participants may have felt that the experimenter was responsible for any harm caused, not themselves, which made it easier to continue delivering shocks. Next, legitimacy of authority basically means we're more likely to obey people who we perceive as having rightful power in a particular situation. In Milgram's study, the experimenter wore a lab coat and conducted the study at Yale University, which gave him an air of scientific authority. Participants were more willing to follow his orders because they saw him as a legitimate expert who knew what he was doing. For situational factors, there are three main ones that affect how likely we are to obey. First, proximity to the victim plays a role, so when the learner was in a different room, obedience was higher than when the learner was in the same room as the participant. Second, the location's legitimacy matters, so when Milgram repeated the study in a rundown office building rather than Yale University, obedience rates dropped. And third, authority symbols such as uniforms can increase obedience because they reinforce the perceived legitimacy of the person giving orders. In Milgram's study, the lab coat worn by the experimenter served as this kind of authority symbol, and when the experimenter was replaced by someone in ordinary clothes, obedience dropped from 65% to just 20%. So sign up for free by clicking here, or browse our playlist here on YouTube.