Obedience

In human nature, obedience is a form of “social influence in which a person yields to explicit instructions or orders from an authority figure” and there is a hierarchy of power present. This is different from conformity as conformity occurs through social pressures (the norms of the society). We assume that without such an order, the person would not have acted in this way. People are socialised to obey and from a young age, we’ve often been given commands and rules to follow on a day-to-day basis, learning from people such as parents that disobedience leads to punishment but what is it that makes us obey or disobey?

Factors influencing obedience levels include the presence of an authority figure (be it religious or secular), whether peers obey or rebel, authoritarian parenting and personal responsibility.

Milgram (1963) conducted an experiment which showed shocking levels of obedience to an authority figure although it lacked realism of an everyday situation. The experiments began in 1961, one year after  the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram wanted to know, “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?” (Milgram, 1974). He was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. The results showed that 65% (two-thirds) of participants (i.e. teachers) continued to the highest level of 450 volts. All the participants continued to 300 volts. This concluded that ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being. In the Stanford Prison Experiment by Zimbardo (1973), higher levels of perceived prestige and closer proximity to the authority figure were associated with increased obedience. Deindividuation and lack of expertise in the participants were also associated with higher levels of obedience.

Also, obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the way we are brought up. Children often have to obey their own parents when they are young (for example – doing homework, studying, chores, going to bed at a certain time) and sometimes obedience is associated with reward and rebellion is associated with punishment. However, as children mature, they become more independent and people argue that raising children to be obedient is much less healthy than raising them to be able to think for themselves as they should be taught to question authority, develop the critical thinking skills, personal confidence, and ethical autonomy which will enable them to resist or reject such orders if they don’t agree with the reasons behind them.

Whether peers obey or rebel also influences the level of obedience. Generally, if the majority of a class refuses to quieten down after a teacher’s command, you may feel that because the majority are rebelling, you might as well do so too. From a different angle, if you are the only disruptive person in a class full of students who are quietly working and the teacher threatens to hand out a punishment exercise to the whole class, you may rethink your actions if you are someone who is liberal and empathetic. Additionally, if you notice that 2 of your peers are quiet, you may also decide to stay silent in hopes that you and the 2 other people will be exempt from punishment (minority influence) while the majority face the consequences.

Social Psychology – Conformity NSI vs. ISI

Conformity is a type of social influence involving a change in one’s behaviour or belief in order to fit in with the social norm. A person’s opinion could be changed by influences such as peer pressure and the physical presence of others, or as Crutchfield in 1955 suggested, “yielding to group pressures.”

Kelman (1958) distinguished between three different types of conformity: Compliance, identification and internalisation. Compliance involves an individual publicly changing their behaviour or belief to fit in with a group despite the fact that they disagree privately. This is evident in Asch’s ‘length of lines’ study in 1955. Identification involves the individual to publicly change their behaviour or belief to fit in with the group and also agreeing with them privately although if the group one day ceased to exist then agreement would only be temporary. An example would be Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment in 1973. Internalisation is where a group causes a permanent change in behaviour and beliefs and there is no change in private opinion.

Motivation to conform can stem from normative social influence (NSI). NSI is to do with having the desire to fit in with a group of people and a person often conforms due to the fear of being rejected by the group if they do or agree with something which the rest of the group are against/disagree with. NSI usually involves compliance. For instance, say there are 5 people in your group of friends including yourself. 4 of them are talking about their love for pop/punk rock music. You may actually hate the styles they love and instead prefer jazz/blues music but for the sake of fitting in and with the fear of rejection, you nod your head and agree with how amazing the drummer looks with those new neon blue highlights in his edgy fringe but you actually don’t care.

Asch’s ‘length of lines’ study in 1955 showed NSI.

Informational social influence (ISI) is another type of motivation which is to do with the desire to be correct when there is no obvious right answer. When a person lacks knowledge about something or is in an ambiguous situation, they look to the group for guidance, socially comparing their behaviour with the group. ISI usually involves internalisation. For instance, if a class discussion is happening and a student who is perceived as highly intelligent gives their opinion on the topic, other students might follow and agree with that judgement.

Jenness’ ‘bottle of beans’ experiment in 1932 showed ISI and is an example of internalisation.

In Britain, ethical guidelines for research are published by the British Psychological Society and the purpose of these codes of conduct is to protect research participants, the reputation of psychology and psychologists themselves. With regard to Asch’s experiment, participants were not protected from psychological stress and discomfort which may occur if they disagreed with the majority thus fully informed consent was not provided by participants. Asch also deceived the volunteers by leading them to believe that they were taking part in a ‘vision’ test but the real purpose was to see how the ‘naive’ participant would react to the behavior of the confederates. However, deception was necessary to produce valid results and it is important to remember that codes of conduct are not sufficient in themselves to guarantee that research is ethical. The BPS guidelines (1978) state: “The understanding of human behaviour ameliorates the human condition and enhances human dignity… The balance between the interests of the subject and the humane or scientific value of the research must be weighed carefully… A detailed list of prescribed and proscribed procedures would be impractical… The principles should not be a substitute for considered judgement.”

Fight or Flight Response

Two people are in a fight. Person A wants to fight and Person B wants to flee from the current situation. The biological approach to psychology explains that sensory nerve cells pass the identification of a threat or stress (stimuli) from the environment to the area of the brain called the hypothalamus. Neurosecretory cells in the hypothalamus transmit a signal to the pituitary gland, causing cells there to release a chemical messenger into the bloodstream. At the same time, the hypothalamus transmits a nerve signal down the spinal cord. Both the chemical messenger and nerve impulse will travel to the adrenal gland. Adrenaline is a hormone in the adrenal gland which is secreted when we are afraid, stressed or angry. It also causes the heart rate and stroke volume to increase, preparing us for ‘fight or flight’ (response). The purpose of this physiological reaction is to ready the body for one of two reactions to a perceived threat in our environment — to fight or to flee.

But what influences a person’s choice to either fight or flight?

From the nature-nurture debate, their response could be based on upbringing. Person A’s confrontational personality and fight response could have been shaped by their early experiences  such as being exposed to violence at a young age. It could also be due to their own learning – they believe that they will/can come out on top at the end of the fight and associate fighting with winning as a reward (this is also their own conscious decision making).

Person B’s flight response can be explained in the same way. They could have been taught at an early age to avoid trouble and confrontation as is could be a danger to them. They could have also learned that violence leads to a bad outcome thus avoid it.

From a different angle, by applying Freud’s ego-defence theory and the psychoanalytic approach, Person A may not actually want to fight which means that they are using displacement as an ego defence mechanism to take out their anger to feel better. Person B could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Similarly, Person A could see B as threatening which causes them to distort reality and believe that they can win the fight by being more violent to protect their conscious mind. Furthermore, if A did see B as a threat, A could be in denial by refusing to believe that B is too threatening to fight.