Social psychology
- Human beings are social animals and being part of a group can lead to many
benefits for the individual members. However, group membership can also
encourage individuals to participate in behaviours that they may never have
considered had they not been ‘one of the gang’.
Key terms:
Obedience - A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order.
The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority who has the power to
punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming.
Autonomous state - conscious and aware of the consequences of our behaviour.
Agentic state - seeing ourselves as the puppets of others and no longer responsible
for our actions. We are responsible only to the person giving the orders.
Agentic shift - The process of moving between an autonomous and an agentic
state.
Moral strain - In more extreme situations people are ordered to act against their
moral code and in doing so experience stress which milgram describes as moral
strain.
Legitimate Authority figure -
Destructive Obedience -
The Agency Theory:
Milgram's Baseline Study:
(Stanley Milgram 1963)
‘the germans are different”
The maximum number of shocks that could be delivered to a ‘learner’ was 30
starting at 15 volts and going up to 450 volts in 15-volt increments.
Aims:
Stanley Milgram aimed to understand the behaviour of those Germans who followed
orders to kill over 10 million people in the Holocaust. There was a belief that the
‘germans were different’, i.e they were very obedient and Milgram wanted to explore
this.
Procedure:
He recruited a volunteer sample of 40 men, aged 20-50 years, from New Haven (in
America) through the local newspaper and letters in the post. They varied from
unskilled workers to professionals. The men were offered $4.50 for participation, a
reasonable sum in those days.
On arrival the participants were told that they could drop out at any point and still
keep the money. They were then introduced to two men. One was the experimenter,
- Human beings are social animals and being part of a group can lead to many
benefits for the individual members. However, group membership can also
encourage individuals to participate in behaviours that they may never have
considered had they not been ‘one of the gang’.
Key terms:
Obedience - A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order.
The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority who has the power to
punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming.
Autonomous state - conscious and aware of the consequences of our behaviour.
Agentic state - seeing ourselves as the puppets of others and no longer responsible
for our actions. We are responsible only to the person giving the orders.
Agentic shift - The process of moving between an autonomous and an agentic
state.
Moral strain - In more extreme situations people are ordered to act against their
moral code and in doing so experience stress which milgram describes as moral
strain.
Legitimate Authority figure -
Destructive Obedience -
The Agency Theory:
Milgram's Baseline Study:
(Stanley Milgram 1963)
‘the germans are different”
The maximum number of shocks that could be delivered to a ‘learner’ was 30
starting at 15 volts and going up to 450 volts in 15-volt increments.
Aims:
Stanley Milgram aimed to understand the behaviour of those Germans who followed
orders to kill over 10 million people in the Holocaust. There was a belief that the
‘germans were different’, i.e they were very obedient and Milgram wanted to explore
this.
Procedure:
He recruited a volunteer sample of 40 men, aged 20-50 years, from New Haven (in
America) through the local newspaper and letters in the post. They varied from
unskilled workers to professionals. The men were offered $4.50 for participation, a
reasonable sum in those days.
On arrival the participants were told that they could drop out at any point and still
keep the money. They were then introduced to two men. One was the experimenter,
