Gender: Burger found no significant difference 27% (27.3%) 6 female and 33% (33.3%) 6 males.
Milgram found no difference, used sample of 40 women and got result of 65% same as his base line experiment. However females had higher levels of moral strain, stress and tension.
Shanaba Yahya – 192 Jordanian ppts (aged 6-8, 10-12, 14-16) Followed Milgram’s procedure & no sig difference but more obedient females reported to giving to the shocks due to following orders. Females more anxious.
Kilham & mann – Males 40%, women 16% when giving shock. 68% male and 40% women when giving others to give shock. Did match pair of learner and teacher to see if women would form alliances.
Gupa – females less obedient to males – but found females to have more stress & tension.
Personality: Authoritarian personality: adult personalities stem from childhood experiences & actions of their parents based on psychodynamic defence mechanisms.
People with authoritarian personalities had strict, punctuate parents who demanded absolute obedience & loyalty, impossibly high standards & very critical of failure. They have defence mechanism to put hostility on weaker minorities since couldn’t to their strict parents. (Still idolising their parents).
Adoro investigated AP on obedience, exploring childhood & personalities using 2000 USA college students.
Locus of control: (background) Holocaust survivor Grentchen Brandt took part in Milgram’s study, refused to continue to 210v, she was calm & composed and saw disobedience as a rational act. Witnessing the Nazi era made her more autonomous, Milgram thought she was more sensitive to her actions.
Rotter investigated concept of Locus of Control as a type of personality. Some believe actions are entirely their control while others are ‘victims to fate’.
External locus of control – helpless & blame others for failure. ‘that happened because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
Internal locus of control – feel in control & take control of their responsibility for their actions. What happened was a consequence of their behaviour, succeed in difficult & stressful situation. Achievement orientated & make better leaders & resist the pressures of others. ‘That happened because I made it happen.’
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| Milgram – 35% of ppts couldn’t go up to 450v in original study – meaning more likely to have internal locus of control than others who obeyed. Understood implications of their actions.
Elms – Found obedient parents describing parents in more negative way while defiant children in a more positive way – authoritarian personalities likely to be created by hatred of their strict parents & upbringing. Olmer – 406 Germans sheltered Jews from the Nazi’s & found they had an internal LOC – shows that implications of actions can show obedience or dissent & have control over their actions. Application – show that obedience is a case of personality traits by a strict upbringing of parents who demand loyalty and critical of failings – implications on society & government to stop strict parenting and making ppl aware of the effects of it. |
Low V – adoro uses F-scale to measure AP from interviews and questionnaires on statements – findings may not be accurate due to social desirability.
Low eco validity – most of the studies such as Burger & Milgram took place in a uni lab which was an artificial setting – behaviour may not be natural of representing obedience Milgram – run down office showed that obedience fell to 48% when the location changed – highlights the important of situation factors at obedience. Social impact theory –. The power of sources or status of the source may affect the obedience of a target – doesn’t acknowledge the role of personality but that obedience is created by the impact of people around us
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