Factors Influencing Obedience to Authority

Exploring the Dynamics of Obedience: Milgram's Experiment and Agentic State Theory

Stanley Milgram's landmark study in 1963 was a psychological inquiry into obedience to authority, inspired by the defense of Nazi war criminals who claimed they were 'just following orders.' Milgram's experiment involved participants believing they were administering electric shocks to another person under the instruction of an authority figure. The results were startling: all participants complied to some degree, and a significant majority (65%) administered the experiment's maximum voltage. Milgram theorized the agentic state to explain this phenomenon, where individuals enter a mental state that allows them to follow orders without feeling personal responsibility, effectively acting as agents of the authority figure.

Factors Influencing Obedience: Insights from Milgram's Study

Milgram's research uncovered various situational factors that can modulate obedience, such as the perceived legitimacy of the authority figure, often symbolized by a uniform; cultural norms that reinforce obedience to hierarchy; the physical and psychological proximity to the 'victim,' which can amplify feelings of personal accountability; and the setting's prestige, which can bolster the authority's perceived legitimacy. Experiments showed that obedience rates varied with these factors, for example, decreasing when the authority figure wore ordinary clothes or when the setting was less formal. These findings illustrate that obedience is not solely a trait of the individual but is heavily influenced by the surrounding circumstances.

The Role of Uniforms in Authority: Bickman's 1974 Study

Leonard Bickman expanded on the concept of situational influence on obedience in his 1974 study, which examined the effect of uniforms on compliance. In a field experiment in Brooklyn, New York, Bickman had actors dress as a security guard, a milkman, or a civilian and issue commands to passersby. The study found that people were significantly more likely to obey the actor dressed as a security guard, reinforcing the idea that uniforms that signify authority can increase compliance.

Investigating Obedience Through Scenarios and Surveillance

Bickman's research included various instructions, such as asking pedestrians to pick up a paper bag, give a dime to someone, or stand on the other side of a bus stop. The guard uniform consistently elicited higher obedience rates. Bickman also explored the role of surveillance by having the authority figure either remain in sight or leave after giving the command. The level of obedience was largely unaffected by the presence of the authority figure, suggesting that the symbolic power of the uniform was the dominant factor in eliciting obedience.

Predicted Versus Actual Obedience: A Study of Perceptions

In a related study, Bickman asked female college students to predict their obedience in the scenarios used in his field experiments. The students did not regard the guard as a significantly more legitimate authority figure and believed they would not be swayed by the uniform. However, their predictions did not match the actual behavior observed in the field, indicating a gap between self-perceived and actual obedience, which underscores the complexity of human behavior in social contexts.

Critical Assessment of Bickman's Obedience Research

While Bickman's study boasts high ecological validity due to its naturalistic setting, it also has limitations, including the challenge of controlling for extraneous variables and questions about the generalizability of the findings across different cultures or in response to female authority figures. Ethical considerations are also pertinent, as the unwitting participants were not given informed consent or debriefed post-experiment, raising concerns about the manipulation involved. Nevertheless, Bickman's work provides important empirical evidence on the situational factors that can influence obedience, complementing and extending Milgram's seminal research.