Social Influence: Obedience (College Board AP® Psychology): Study Guide

Obedience & authority

• Obedience is compliance with the explicit orders of an authority figure

  • Unlike conformity, which involves responding to implicit peer pressure, obedience requires a direct command from someone in a position of authority

  • Unlike persuasion, which aims to change attitudes through communication, obedience does not depend on belief change, as individuals may comply even if they privately disagree

• Obedience is a normal and often functional part of social life:

  • it enables social institutions (schools, hospitals, armies, governments) to function

  • it allows expertise and legitimate authority to guide behavior in complex situations

    • E.g. following a surgeon's instructions during an operation

• The concern in social psychology is with destructive obedience

  • This is compliance with orders that cause harm to others

Authority and legitimacy

• Obedience depends critically on the perceived legitimacy of an authority figure:

  • Authority is perceived as legitimate when it is associated with recognized expertise, institutional role, or official status

    • E.g. a doctor, police officer, military officer, or employer is perceived as having legitimate authority in their field

  • When authority is perceived as illegitimate (outside its proper field or without recognized status) obedience decreases

• The agentic state describes the psychological shift that occurs when a person sees themselves as an agent executing another's wishes rather than as an autonomous individual:

  • In the agentic state, the person transfers moral responsibility for the consequences of their actions to the authority figure

  • This transfer of responsibility is a key mechanism enabling destructive obedience

Milgram's obedience experiments

Aim

• Stanley Milgram (1961–1963) conducted a landmark series of experiments on obedience

  • He was motivated by the question of how ordinary people could participate in systematic atrocities, as seen during the Holocaust

• Aim: to determine the extent to which ordinary people would obey an authority figure's instructions to administer increasingly severe harm to an innocent person

Procedure

• Participants: 40 male volunteers recruited through newspaper advertisements, representing a range of ages and occupations

• Setting: Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

• Design:

  • Participants were told they were taking part in a study on learning and memory

  • Each participant was assigned the role of 'teacher'; a confederate played the role of 'learner'

  • The learner was strapped into a chair in an adjacent room and connected to an (apparently real) shock generator

  • The teacher was instructed to administer electric shocks for every incorrect answer, increasing in voltage from 15V to 450V in 15V increments

  • Voltage labels on the generator ranged from "Slight shock" to "Danger: severe shock" and finally "XXX"

  • In reality, no shocks were delivered, as the learner was a confederate who played pre-recorded distress responses at each voltage level, eventually falling silent at higher voltages

  • When participants hesitated or refused, the experimenter used standardized verbal prods in sequence:

    1. "Please continue" / "Please go on"

    2. "The experiment requires that you continue"

    3. "It is absolutely essential that you continue"

    4. "You have no other choice, you must go on"

Findings

• 65% of participants (26 out of 40) delivered the maximum shock level of 450V

  • This was labelled "XXX"

• 100% of participants delivered shocks of at least 300V

• Many participants showed visible and significant distress , e.g. trembling, sweating, nervous laughter, verbal protests, yet continued to comply

• The results were far higher than predicted:

  • Milgram had asked psychiatrists to predict the outcome in advance, and they estimated fewer than 1% of participants would deliver the maximum shock

Factors affecting obedience

• Milgram conducted a systematic series of follow-up studies varying the conditions of the experiment to identify what increases or decreases obedience:

• Milgram's follow-up studies showed that:

  • situational factors are the primary influences on obedience, not the personality or moral character of the individual

  • proximity of both the authority figure and the victim significantly influences obedience

  • social support for disobedience dramatically reduces compliance

    • The dissenting peer condition parallels the ally effect in Asch's conformity research

  • Diffusion of responsibility increases obedience

    • When people feel they are not personally responsible for the outcome, they comply more readily

Cultural context

• Milgram's baseline findings have been broadly replicated across different countries:

  • obedience rates in replications have ranged from approximately 28% to over 90% depending on cultural context and methodology

  • collectivist cultures tend to show higher obedience rates than individualistic cultures

    • Respect for authority and maintaining group harmony are more strongly emphasized in collectivist cultures

Ethical evaluation of Milgram's research

• Milgram's research produced significant scientific knowledge about obedience to authority

• However, it raises serious ethical concerns when evaluated against contemporary APA guidelines

Deception

• Participants were misled about:

  • the purpose of the study (learning and memory, not obedience)

  • the identity of the learner (a confederate, not a real participant)

  • the reality of the shocks (no shocks were delivered)

• This deception was fundamental to the design but meant participants could not give meaningful informed consent to what they were actually agreeing to

Psychological harm

• Participants experienced significant and observable distress during the experiment :

  • Many were observed trembling, sweating, expressing verbal anguish

  • Many were profoundly disturbed by the realization, during debriefing, that they had been willing to harm an innocent person on instruction

• Follow-up interviews suggested some participants experienced lasting anxiety and guilt as a result

Right to withdraw

• The verbal prods used by the experimenter made participants believe they had no right to withdraw

  • E.g. "You have no other choice, you must go on"

• This goes beyond standard deception and represents a coercive element within the design itself, directly violating the APA principle of voluntary participation

Lack of institutional oversight

• Milgram's studies predated modern institutional review board (IRB) requirements

• Under contemporary APA ethical guidelines, the study would not receive approval, as the level of deception, psychological harm, and coercive pressure would fail multiple ethical criteria

Debriefing

• Milgram did conduct thorough debriefing, as participants were:

  • introduced to the confederate learner

  • reassured that they had not caused real harm

  • given a full explanation of the study's purpose

• Milgram also conducted follow-up interviews and reported that the majority of participants said they were glad to have participated and valued the insight the experience gave them

• Debriefing partially mitigates but does not fully resolve the ethical concerns, as it cannot undo the harm occurred during the study

Scientific value

• Milgram's research produced some of the most significant and widely cited findings in social psychology, demonstrating the power of situational factors over individual moral agency

• The findings have had major applied implications for understanding:

  • workplace misconduct

  • institutional abuse

  • military atrocities

  • the conditions under which ordinary people commit harmful acts under authority

• Scientific value is part of the ethical cost-benefit analysis, but does not override the requirement to protect participants from harm