Influences on Obedience

I chose to demonstrate the influences on obedience for my demonstrate-a-concept blog. Obedience is changing behaviors because of a direct command from an authority figure (Milgram, 1963). Destructive disobedience is specifically following commands from authority figures which will cause others harm. The three sets which influence destructive obedience is the authority figure, the victim, and the procedure (Blass, 1992; Miller, 1986).

Subsets under the authority figure are the figure’s status (affected by both location and the person) and the proximity of the figure. The higher the status of the establishment from which the figure comes from and/or the higher status of the person themselves, the more likely people will obey his or her orders (Milgram, 1974). Furthermore, the farther away the figure is, the less likely people will obey his or her orders (Milgram, 1974).

The subset under the victim is proximity A person is typically more willing to inflict harm on another person that they cannot see, and from whom they can psychologically distance themselves (Miller, 1986, p. 228). Obedience drops when the victim is in the same room as the obedient person, and drops farther when the obedient person has to touch the victim in order to follow instructions which are harmful (Milgram, 1974).

The subsets under the procedure are a sense of responsibility, transmitter vs. executant role, and the foot-in-the-door technique. If the person feels that he or she is responsible for his or her actions, that person is less likely to cause harm to another person than if someone else is willing to take responsibility (Tilker, 1970). The transmitter is a role which only requires the transmittance of an action, not thinking of the idea or carrying out the action. The executant executes the actually command. People will more likely follow destructive orders in a transmitter role than an executant role (Kilham & Mann, 1974). Also, if the authority convinces a person to do a small task first, that person is more likely to carry out bigger tasks later (Freedman & Fraser, 1966).

To demonstrate these ideas, I sent people the following survey without the concept that it is supposed to test which I’ve included in parenthesis.

Imagine that you are walking, simply minding your own business, when someone tells you to hit the nearest person. Assume you don’t know the person telling you or the person you potentially hit.

First off, how likely are you to hit a person if told to?

Under each of the following circumstances tell whether or not you think you would listen to the person telling you to hit someone. If you don't want to put a yes/no answer, give a percentage of the time you think you would listen to them.

1) You're in the FBI building, and a security guard tells you to. (status of establishment)
2) You're in a Walmart, and a security guard tells you to. (status of establishment)
3) Another student at Southwestern tells you to, and you can't hit that student. (status of figure)
4) The Southwestern police tell you to. (status of figure)
5) While walking down the street, a police officer tells you to. (proximity of figure)
6) While walking down the street, a police officer from a third story window tells you to. (proximity of figure)
7) You don't actually have to hit the person, but press a button that will activate a mechanical arm which will hit the person. Please try to exclude influence of the cool factor. (proximity of victim)(compared to original likelihood of hitting someone)
8) You're told if you hit someone, the person who told you to hit them will take responsibility for your actions. (responsibility)
9) You're told if you hit someone, you will have to take responsibility for your actions.(responsibility)
10) You have to tell someone else to hit somebody, but you don't have to hit anyone yourself. (transmitter vs. executant)(compared to original likelihood of hitting someone)
11) At first you're told only to give someone a light tap. Afterward you're told to make it a little harder, then you're supposed to hit them. (foot-in-the-door technique)(compared to original)

Six people responded to the survey. The average percent that people felt they would hit another person is 15.8%. For the first question with a high establishment status figure, they predicted they would obey 55% of the time. For the low establishment status figure, the prediction dropped to 2.5%. The third question issued the command from a low personal status figure, and the prediction was they would obey 5% of the time. For the high(er) personal status figure, the prediction rose to 11.7 %. Participants answered that they would obey 20.8% in the close proximity situation compared to 9.2% in the far proximity situation. Though the cool factor was hard to ignore in the victim proximity case, participants predicted they would obey 26.7% instead of the original 15.8% of the time. For the situation in which the figure took responsibility, participants said they would obey 26.7% of the time, and for the situation in which the person took responsibility, participants said only 3.3% of the time. The smallest obedience yet. In the role of the transmitter instead of executant, predictions were 16.7% instead of the original 15.8%. Lastly, for the foot-in-the-door condition, predictions jumped to 21.7% compared to the original 15.8%

Though the results generally support the trends, some of the concepts weren’t really meant to be tested by survey. The foot-in-the-door technique (which I’m actually surprised worked) is not meant to have each step presented all at once. The point is to ease people into doing the action, and that is not captured in two sentences. Also some participants predicted they would obey the Southwestern student instead of the Southwestern police, so esteem for Southwestern students versus for Southwestern police could have biased their responses. The twist to the results is that one of the six participants (who has been studying a lot of Holocaust this semester) answered 0% to every answer, and the results I gave include her responses factoring into the averages.

Using the foot-in-the-door technique myself, after I asked the small favor of filling out a short survey. I asked a bigger favor, for 3 of the participants to video their results. This is why we’re reading from papers, I didn’t script them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDJjovaGTnA

The funniest part is that these are all people that live in BC 2 with me, and the first video participant said that she would do what I said because I was simply wearing a suit jacket over my normal clothes. When in real life, I’m nothing more than her suitemate.

Blass, T. (1992). The social psychology of Stanley Milgram. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 227-329.

Kilham, W., & Mann, L. (1974). Level of destructive obedience as a function of transmitter and executant roles in the Milgram obedience paradigm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29, 696-702.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378.

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper & Row.

Miller, A. G. (1986). The obedience experiments: A case study of controversy in social science. New York: Praeger.

Tilker, H. A. (1970). Socially responsible behavior as a function of observer responsibility and victim feedback. Journal of personality and Social Psychology, 14, 95-100.