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Describe the aims and findings of one study of majority influence.
Zimbardo carried out a prison simulation experiment in 1971. The aims of this experiment were to see the psychological effects of making ‘normal’, ‘good’ people into prisoners or guards. The experiment was designed to show conformity to social roles.
The findings of this experiment were astonishing and in fact the whole experiment had to be stopped after only 6 days, as the guards became sadistic and aggressive with the prisoners when on their own, out of camera range. The prisoners became extremely stressed, from being beaten and push around by the guards. Therefore this shows us that the whole point about acting a role is that you are more likely to behave in the way that you believe the role that you have been given would act, especially when you have an audience.
- “Sometimes people obey authority but sometimes resist it”
Discuss what research into obedience tells us about why people obey and how people might resist obedience.
Obedience is compliance with an order issued by an authority figure. Obedience is not as general as conformity; it is related to specific instruction from another person.
Many people obey to many, if not most orders that we are given everyday, as that is what it has always been like, if someone gives you an order you more often then not. Milgram proposed the agentic theory: when we act as the agent of someone in authority we find it easy to deny personal responsibility for our own actions – just following orders or just doing our job.
Obedience to authority is deeply ingrained from early childhood when we are taught to obey our parents, teachers and elders.
It is possible that the demand characteristics raised obedience rates. In Milgram’s experiments people felt they were ‘helping’ in a scientific experiment. It also helped that the authority appeared to be academic experts at a top university, people would have trusted them.
However many people everyday also resist obedience as we may find that we are not willing to do the thing that the person tells us to do.
Milgram's study also shows how people may resist obedience because a few people stopped at 250volts as they were not willing to kill someone just to obey what the orders of others.
Also Milgram’s Gramson et al experiment in 1982 shows the resistance of obedience. The groups of people involved in this experiment realised that they were being manipulated to produce tapes of evidence supporting the oil company’s position. Disobedience rates were virtually 100%. In some groups participants threatened to confiscate the videotapes. In all groups there were some rebellions and all but 4 groups refused to sign the affidavit giving MHRC permission to use the video tape in a trial.
Therefore Milgram could see that many people will resist obedience if they believe that what they are being told to do is unethical.
