Gibson, Stephen ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5648-7669 (2019) Obedience without orders: Expanding social psychology’s conception of ‘obedience’. British Journal of Social Psychology, 58 (1). pp. 241-259.

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Abstract

Psychologists have typically defined obedience as a form of social influence elicited in response to direct orders from an authority figure. In the most influential set of studies of obedience, conducted by Stanley Milgram in the early 1960s, the orders at the disposal of the authority figure were a series of verbal prods. However, recent research has suggested that Milgram’s experiments do not show people following orders. It has therefore been suggested that the experiments are not demonstrations of obedience. However, in the present paper it is argued that rather than abandoning the idea that Milgram’s work is a demonstration of obedience, it is in fact our conceptualisation of obedience that is wrong. Obedience should not be understood as requiring direct orders from an authority figure. This argument is developed with reference to an extended case example from one of Milgram’s experimental conditions in which a participant completed the experiment in the absence of direct orders. It is argued that such participants can still be understood as obedient if we consider the implicit demands of the system in which participants find themselves. The paper concludes by presenting a new definition of obedience that omits the need for direct orders.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	"This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Gibson, Stephen (2018) Obedience without orders: Expanding social psychology’s conception of ‘obedience’. British Journal of Social Psychology which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12272 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving."
Status:	Published
DOI:	10.1111/bjso.12272
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
School/Department:	School of Education, Language and Psychology
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/3293

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