Research In Criminology Project: Authority And Obedience

Literature Review

Discuss about the Research in Criminology Project.

Authority- The term that enables most of people obey without asking any question. When we see a person who seems to hold an authority or a powerful designation (like wearing a uniform) or a particular getup for instance a woman holding a baby and we may never ever think to question that woman may not in fact be a mother to that baby. 

• So why is that authority so important?
• What makes people so easily to accept what an authorized person is saying?

In a study done by Hajo Adam, Adam D. Galinsky (Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois, 2006) they concluded that clothes can have an immense psychological effect of the viewer as well as the wearer?   Inspired by this, a Dutch photographer Herlinde Koebl clicked several pictures of people in two ways- their “work clothing” and their “casual clothing”.

Here we can easily see how a uniform can bring a dramatic change in viewer’s eye for the knowledge and power they possess. This approach seems particularly well suited for participant’s reaction limited to uniforms or on professional clothing.

In this project, I will explore how people response to something regardless of the uniform someone is wearing. In particular I will focus on how people response when someone verbally tells them their designation. How their verbal identity can influence participants opinion.  Such a study should give an insight to understand human behaviour and the factors that trigger their responses in varying situations. It will also help us understand to what extent a human can feel authoritative or feel the pressure of completing a task when given by a superior authority.

With the help of two more people I will conduct my study over different locations at Langara College. This team includes 2 girls, one in her early 20s who will play the role of a student and other in her late 20s who will be assigned the role of an instructor. Participants- Random students of Langara College will be used as participants. There will be no consents given to them as they will be observed on their instant reactions.

Each of the team members will act like an instructor teaching at Langara and a student studying at Langara. They will randomly choose any student from the crowd and ask them to handover a note to a student. As per the plot, the team members will tell the participants that is I s really important for that student to get his notebook because all his lecture notes are written down in it and he needs to go through it for the midterm. Both the instructor and student have to leave the campus because of an emergency and they can’t wait for him. Here, I will be acting as one the students standing nearby pretending to be busy with my own things.

Research Methodology

Over a period of week, weekdays from Monday to Friday. On each day the experiment will be tested on over 4-6 participants. It will approximately take 10 minutes to 20 minutes on a single participant.

My primary focus will be on observing how many participants agree to take the responsibility of handing over the notebook in each case i.e. if it is given by instructor or by the student.

Throughout my observation, I witnessed how authority shapes the behaviour of the students with respect to handing over a note to the student. My acknowledgement is that the instructor is in this case a symbol of authority while the student is an inferior participant. The results showed that students who were instructed by the instructor handed over the notes to their fellow students. However, the students that were instructed by their fellow student disobeyed the instructions and rushed out escaping the emergence. This results can, therefore, be summarized in the table below.

No of student   Instructor	Handed Over Notes	Never hand over Notes
Teacher (authority figure)	12	1
Student	1	17

From the above table, it is clear that only one student disobeyed the authority’s verbal instruction to handover the notes to the student and rushed out to run due to the emergency. It can also be observed that only one student obeyed the fellow student’s instructions and handed over the book. Again, it is clear that more students (12) obeyed the teacher (authority figure) verbal instructions to hand over the notes despite the emergency. On the other hand, more students (17) disobeyed the fellow student’s instructions to handover the notes to the colleagues.  

The bottom line is that students tend to be more obedient to their teachers that fellow students. They will always comply with the commands issued by an authority figure, in this case, the teacher. As indicated by Stanley Milgram (1960) obedience study, people have a firm tendency to comply with authority figures. This explains why the students in this study chose to hand over the notes to the students despite the emergency so long as the command arose from the teacher (McLeod, 2007). The reason is that student obey their teachers and can do anything once commanded. Some students have reported that the fear of being punished by authority have triggered their behaviours.

As noted by Stanley (1960) study on the effects of punishment on learning, the authority figure has an undue influence of the subjects.  In the similar manner that Stanley (1960) saw ‘teachers’ administering highest  level shock to punish those student who fail to obey to make them do as commanded, this study affirms this act where despite the emergency, students handed over the notes to others as a result of authority figure’s command. The students in the present study acted in this manner since they were under pressure to do so from the authority figure.

Results

The study has noted that there are certain factors that enhance obedience.  The first condition is when the command is issued by authority figure instead of the student. For instance, in the current study, it was observed clearly that student had to obey their teacher unlike their fellow student.

This account for the high number of students handing over the notes at plot to their fellow student when commanded by the teacher. The obedience is also high where the experiments are performed in a prestigious institution which was the case of the current study. Moreover, it is more intense when the authority figure is present in the room alongside the subjects as witnessed in this study. It is also profound where the subject do observe other subject disobeying the authority figure.

Authority obedience has always been related to the need to get reward, prevent negative consequence of disobeying as well as belief that authority is legitimate. In extremist conditions, people have also obeyed the authority when they are needed to violate their individual values or commit crimes. From this, study the reasons why people carry obedience to the extreme ends have been discovered. One of these reasons is that people tend to justify their obedience by assigning responsibility to the authority instead of themselves.

People will also carry obedience to the extreme because they define the behaviour which is anticipated to them as a routine. They will also obey at extreme end because they do not want to become rude or offend the authority. Also, authority has been obeyed at the extreme situation since people tend to obey the easy commands initially and subsequently feel forced to obey the more and more complex commands. This is a process dubbed entrapment, and it demonstrates the foot-in-the door context of phenomenon.

The authority works on the basis of a group in the lens of social psychologists. This is because a group is considered as one that is composed of two or additional people that interact as well as depend on one another in a given manner.  For example, in this case students and teachers can be considered as a group. This is because they interact through teaching and learning. The students, therefore, depend on the teachers to give them knowledge while the teacher is dependent on students to get opportunity to earn money and even become promoted.

In the current study, we saw that the instructor and the student gives verbal instruction once a student is picked at random and check whether he will obey the instructions and handover the notes. From the results, it was clear that students that were instructed by the instructor had to handover the notes to the fellow student despite the emergency while those instructed by fellow students disobeyed and left. This is a clear indication of how people respond to something irrespective of the uniform someone wears. Particularly, this instance illustrates how people respond when someone verbally tells them their designation. It shows that the verbal identity of an individual has a great influence on people’s opinion and behaviour.

Analysis and Discussion

From this example, it is easy to draw an insight in understanding the human behaviour as well as the factors which provoke people’s response in varying contexts. From this observation, it is possible to understand the extent to which a human can feel authoritative and feel pressure of completing a task when provided by a superior authority, in this case instructor.

Chapter Six: Conclusion 

From the results and the analysis and discussion, it is clear that the level of belief that students had on their teacher (authority figure), directly influenced their behaviour to that particular level. This means that the teacher has been placed by students on “pedestal” and have, therefore, relegated their critical thinking as to what is wrong or right to the authority figure.

Authority, therefore, influence everyone in life. This is why despite the emergency, the students had to handover the notes following the verbal instructions by their teacher. However, without putting someone on “pedestal”, the critical thinking is never relegated to that person as was witnessed when student disobeyed their fellow student’s verbal instructions and ran away due to emergency (Adam & Galinsky, 2012). In this case, the student could distinguish between the right and wrong due to lack of fear of negative consequence of disobeying such an irrational command.

From this current study, it was never uniform that was the source of authority but rather, a title (teacher). Title was, therefore, used in this study to influence the perception and hence behaviour of how one (teacher) is viewed by the students.

The advice is that one should learn to think for oneself as well as to remain more critical where required. An individual should never blindly follow what others say merely because they are viewed as an authority as this might not help or hinder one. There is a need to examine one’s own persona values as well as what one feels is right. Everyone should strive to be a lifelong learner to help determine what is right or wrong in every situation one faces.

Reference

Adam, H., & Galinsky, A. D. (2012). Enclothed cognition. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 918-925.

Cialdini, R. B. (1984). The psychology of persuasion. New York: Quill William Morrow.

Hofling, C. K., Brotzman, E., Dalrymple, S., Graves, N., & Pierce, C. M. (2010). An experimental study in nurse-physician relationships. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 143(2), 171-180.

McLeod, S. A. (2007). Obedience to Authority. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/obedience.html

Milgram, S., & Gudehus, C. (1978). Obedience to authority.