REASONS FOR OBEDIENCE:

o   Socialization – throughout our lives, and especially when we are young, we are taught to obey authority figures, such as parents and teachers. This means that it becomes a normal thing for us to do.

o   Legitimate authority – we are more likely to obey someone if they are wearing a uniform/ lab coat. In a similar way, we might questioningly obey a doctor because we have faith in their superior knowledge.

o   Gradual commitment – as the shocks in Milgram’s study started quite low and increased by small steps, it was difficult for the participant to know where to draw the line. After all, if you’ve given someone a shock of 150, why not 165 volts?

o   Buffers – as the participants could not directly see the victim of their actions, they were shielded from the consequences of what they did. This made it easier for them to deal with.

o   Not feeling responsible – Milgram suggested that the situation he created caused people to lose their sense of responsibility for their own actions. Normally, we feel responsible for what we do. However, here the participants were acting on behalf of someone else; they were just doing as they were told. This stopped them from feeling they would be blamed for what they did. 

STUDY (CONFORMITY)

Aim: to see the effect on judgement of listening to other people.
Method: He asked participants to estimate how far a spot of light moved when they sitting in an  otherwise completely dark room. In fact the light didn’t move at all, but due to an optical illusion called the autokinetic effect it did appear so.
Results: Individually tha participants gave a variety of estrimates, which different quite widely with each other. However, after being allowed to undertake the same task in groups of three, their estimates became more similar until eventually they were very c;lose.
Conclusion: The participants used other peoples opinions to help them form a judgement in an ambiguous situation.

Token economy programs

Token economy programs have been set up in some hospitals, usually in psychiatric wards, to reward socially acceptable behavior in people who have stopped looking after themselves properly. Every time the person produces an appropriate behavior, hospital staff immediately gives the person a token. Tokens are given for making the bed, brushing teeth, and so on and can be used to ‘pay for’ activities like watching a favorite TV program.
Evaluation:

·         They have been criticized; critics argue that they make the patients focus on the reward rather than on wanting their own behavior to improve. Even when the behaviors in hospitals improve, this change might not last in the outside world.

·         If the reward is not immediate then the association between the reward and the action is lost. This means that the behavior is not being reinforced.

·         Ethical issues are involved if patients are not able to watch a favorite TV program because they have not got enough tokens.

There are many people who don’t agree that behavior should be manipulated or changed using systems like this that rely on tokens. Some have suggested that, when we learn to produce good behavior only because we receive a ‘token/reward’, we will not become social or kind humans. They have said that we need to learn to reward ourselves by feeling good when we do good things. We should not need other people to give us a reward all the time.