This essay aims to outline a psychological explanation of obedience, evaluate Milgram's study of obedience and Asch's study of conformity, and then discuss the ethical issues raised in Milgram's experiment . Furthermore, it analyzes explanations of leadership and followership. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Obedience is when a person acts under an order, usually given by an authority figure. It is believed that without the order the individual would not have behaved as he did. This is supported by Very Well Mind (2019): “Obedience is a form of social influence that involves acting according to the orders of an authority figure.” Authority figures have power in social situations, for example the police have control over justice, doctors in the healthcare sector and teachers in schools, consequently the individual issuing the order must be perceived as having the social power to impart commands. Another possible explanation is existence of buffers that may help make people more likely to obey someone because they are unable to see the direct effects of their actions. Dispositional explanations may play a factor in obedience, where experiences in early childhood may have a connection with an authoritarian personality, where they may have had an extremely strict parent or guardian, as a result, the consequences are repressed in the unconscious mind. A further factor that can influence obedience is agent status, i.e. when an individual carries out the orders of an authority they are, for example, a teacher, a doctor or a police officer and do not take any personal responsibility because they they consider inferior. This can only be achieved if the person believes that the person who gave the order has legitimate authority. This is supported by Gale (2015) “People enter a state of agency and do not act of their own volition” In a situation of obedience, individuals transfer all responsibility for their actions to authority figures, individuals are in an autonomous state when they take responsibility for their actions but enter an agent state when they transfer this responsibility to the authority figure. The change from an autonomous state to an agent state is called agent change. There are many situational reasons for obedience, gradual commitment is one, where people commit to an act of obedience, this tends to start with accepting a small request and then slowly becomes committed and finds it difficult to refuse larger requests series. Uniforms can also increase obedience as uniforms represent authority. This is supported by Academia (2020) “Throughout history the uniform has been used as a symbol of authority. In the military, uniforms are of great importance in signifying relative power.' This may also be due to the fact that children have been socialized from childhood to embrace the structure of society, where it is instilled in them at home and at school where they are taught to maintain obedience. This will then feed into a cycle to respect anyone in authority, known as the agent state. Milgram conducted a study on obedience to mirror the atrocities against Jews, in Germany during World War II. He wanted to explore why Germans were particularly compliant towards people in positions of authority, as this was thought to be a plausible explanation for mass murders by the Nazis during World War II. In his research, Stanley Milgram hasrecruited 40 male individuals to participate in a study on learning at Yale University via newspaper advertisements. Milgram became fascinated with exploring how extreme individuals might act in pursuit of an order if it meant hurting someone else. Stanley Milgram was interested in how quickly average citizens could be motivated to commit crimes. The basis of the experiment would have been for the participant to be paired with another individual and he would choose from straws to figure out between the two who would be the 'student' and who would become the teacher.' The draw was designed so that the participant was always the teacher and the student was one of the actors hired by Milgram. The "experimenter" disguised in a lab coat was also played by an actor to fully stimulate the environment for the placebo effect. The student (actor) was tied to a chair with a variable electrical current. After studying a series of word pairs that he is offered to understand, the teacher reviews it by choosing a term and telling the student to identify the pairs from a set of four possible options. Each time the student made a mistake, the teacher was asked to administer an electric shock, each time increasing the level of the shock. There were 30 steps marked from mild shock to severe shock on the shock machine. This is simply supported by psychology (2017) “The student (an accomplice called Mr. Wallace) was taken into a room and had electrodes attached to his arms, and the teacher and researcher went into a room next door that contained an electric shock generator and a row of switches marked from 15 volts (mild shock) to 375 volts (danger: severe shock) to 450 volts (XXX). "Milgram's study used banal realism as only male participants were selected, this was similar to the recruitment arrangements for soldiers by the German Army. Additionally, Milgram also used the draw to help emulate the real conditions so that the participant felt that it was a coincidence that he was in the teacher's position, while in reality the draw was manipulated. Furthermore, Milgram used the illusion of an authority figure through the experimenter wearing a uniform This would have made the participant feel confident in administering the electric shocks since they would have believed that the experimenter was an experienced specialist and. In an obedience situation, individuals transfer all responsibility for their actions to the authority figures, the individuals are in an autonomous state when they do so. they didn't know that the shocks had been It's not true that the cries of pain were pre-recorded and that the student, railroad auditor Jim McDonough, was involved in the whole thing, sitting alive and unharmed in the next room. They were also unaware that they were being used to prove the claim that would soon make Milgram famous: that ordinary people, under the direction of an authority figure, would obey virtually any order they received, even torture. There was also good internal validity as cause and effect could be measured directly without extraneous variables. However, the ecological validity of this experiment was completely inadequate since the individuals completed a task that would probably not be repeated in everyday life. The participants knewfurthermore that they were part of an experiment even though they had not been accurately informed about the type of experiment and the fact that the experiment was only tested for one form of obedience further highlights the disadvantage of the experiment. Furthermore, this was also an ethical issue as participants were unaware of what they were being tested for and may have exhibited demand characteristics as they were being financially compensated for participation. Conformity is when an individual changes their behavior to choose an action that is favored by the majority considered socially acceptable. Many individuals tend to conform to appear nice or similar to their peers. This is supported by psychology (2020) “Conformity is an individual's tendency to align their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors with those of the people around them. Conformity can take the form of overt social pressure or a more subtle, unconscious influence. Regardless of its form, it can be a powerful force, capable of changing the behavior of large groups", Solomon Asch conducted an investigation to examine the effects of group pressure on individuals in an unambiguous situation, he recruited individual male students to participate to the experiment and put the participant in a class with 7 classmates who were part of the experiment working with Asch. He was deceived because he thought it was a vision test, in reality it was a study to see if the individual conformed. to the same response as their peers. study was conducted with 37 participants for a control scenario. This ensured that the results of the tests were reliable as there was good internal validity and that the only variable for the real experiment was the influence of the confederates. This is supported by Very well mind(2019) “The study also included 37 participants in a control condition. This involved each participant providing their response to the online task with only the experimenter in the room and no group of confederates. Furthermore, Asch's study also used mundane realism since the experiment took place in a college stimulating real-life environment. Beyond that, the study is ecologically valid as the experiment reflects situations that can occur in everyday events such as in schools and the effects that peer pressure can have on a student. Despite this, Asch's study cannot be generalized to the majority of the population since the subjects of the targeted experiments consisted only of adolescent males. Another limitation of this experiment was that individuals were not informed about what they were being tested for, but this may have been done to ensure that participants did not deliberately change their behavior, this is supported by Cardwell, M. (2003). “Deception was the norm: it was considered normal practice by researchers to provide a 'cover story' so that participants did not change their behavior to fit the requirements of the experiment. In Asch's research, the participants clearly did not know that they were being deceived, nor did they know that the other "participants" were actually accomplices of the experimenter. the participants should have been informed enough to allow them to agree to participate since they were not aware of the true purpose of the experiment therefore, for this reason they were not able to give informed consent, on the other hand sometimes it is necessary deception, participants should You could not lie, but the research would be useless if participants knew the purposeof research. Participants were led to believe that they had administered a painful electric shock to an innocent person when in reality the shocks did not take place as it was a planned performance and the student was an actor. The participants experienced psychological stress which was demonstrated by the majority of the participants, this suggests that the participants believed that the study was true and that the participant (teacher) was also given a sample shock before starting the experiment, the which could have made the situation more plausible. This is simply supported by psychology (2017) “The student (actor) asked “if it will affect my heart condition” and was told that it is painful but not dangerous. So, the participant (teacher) might have assumed that it would simply be uncomfortable, but not life-threatening, so this forced them to continue as if they were simply obeying orders. Participants have the right to withdraw from any study at any time. But Milgram's participant (teacher) was told to continue and was never given any other choice. This could mean that the sample was biased and that participants may have felt obligated to cooperate because they were paid to take part in the study. This is further supported by the results of the experiment as the participants often trembled, stuttered, sweated and convulsed, this showed that they did not feel comfortable following orders, there was a possible possibility of long-term psychological harm of learning as they were willing to give potentially fatal shocks to another person. This is simply supported by psychology (2017) “Participants were exposed to extremely stressful situations that could potentially cause psychological harm. Many of the participants were visibly distressed. Signs of tension included trembling, sweating, stuttering, nervous laughing, biting his lips, and digging his nails into his palms. Three participants had uncontrollable seizures and many asked to stop the experiment." Participants may have felt controlled and manipulated when they learned the true nature of the experiment and how they were deceived, but without conducting the research you wouldn't be able to know how they feel. Participants have a legal right to confidentiality. Leadership is a procedure in which an individual strongly influences others towards the achievement of collective goals. This is supported by Balance (2020) “leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to take action towards achieving a common goal”. Authoritarian leadership is also known as autocratic: these leaders set clear goals about what should be achieved, how it should be achieved and how it will be achieved. For example, the leader commands and ensures that followers are deeply motivated to follow the leader's style. However, there is a strong gap between the members and the authoritarian leaders who make most of the decisions in the group with little or no involvement from the members. Some people naturally possess the ability to lead others, they have traits and qualities that distinguish them. born with which can help them fill leadership roles. This is known as trait theory which is a reductionist approach and is also due to nature, this is supported by Missouri (2020) “The theory identifies specific personality traits that distinguish leaders from non-leaders. It is based on the premise that leaders are “born, not made,” rather than developed through learning. This theory also focuses on characteristics related to successful leadership in a variety of.”.