4. Disobedience

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this lecture, we think about disobedience, focusing in particular on: (i) the idea that obedience and disobedience can co-occur in certain situations; (ii) Bocchiaro and colleagues’ exploration of disobedience and whistleblowing, which allowed for disobedience and obedience at the same time; (iii) the results of Bocchiaro and colleagues’ study, which found that most people, regardless of gender or personality traits, complied with the experimenter’s request; (iv) the contrast between these actual results and the actions that would-be participants claim they would take, as well as what they would predict others might do; (v) findings that individuals who are low in measures of right wing authoritarianism were shown to disobey a great deal more; (vi) Pozzi and colleagues’ findings, proposing that obeying and disobeying are not viewed as being on the same scale; (vii) Haslam’s proposition that this differentiation in social norm between obedience and disobedience is the reason for resistance in Milgram’s 13a variation when participants were put under intense personal pressure by the experimenter.

Course

In this course, Dr Ayoub Bouguettaya (University of Birmingham) explores factors affecting social influence. In the first lecture, we think about what social influence is and how to define obedience within it. In the second lecture, we think about Milgram’s research into obedience, with a specific review of variations seven, ten and thirteen. In the third lecture, we think about how gender and culture can impact obedience and influenceability. Next, we think about disobedience in the context of whistleblowing and its differentiation from obedience. In the fifth lecture, we think about how you as a psychologist would go about undertaking a study to explore obedience and disobedience. In the sixth and final lecture, we think about how to conclude on the concepts discussed throughout this course.

Lecturer

Dr Ayoub Bouguettaya is a lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham. Dr Bouguettaya’s research interests are in social psychology and how knowledge from that field can be applied to others, particularly health, including how we can apply social identity theory to societal problems, as well as investigating the different perspectives one might take on those issues. Some of Dr Bouguettaya’s recent publications include 'The relationship between gambling advertising and gambling attitudes, intentions and behaviours: a critical and meta-analytic review' (2020) and 'The Effect of a Food Addiction Explanation Model for Weight Control and Obesity on Weight Stigma' (2020).