EDRD 4120 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9-10: Authoritarianism

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Environmental Design and Rural Development
• Course: EDRD 4120
• Professor: James Mahone

Document Summary

Understanding destructive obedience: the milgram experiments sibicky: On one hand obedience to authority is necessary for the proper functioning of any complex hierarchal society, on the other hand, while necessary, obedience to authority also has a dark destructive side. What is difficult for students to understand is why someone would obey destructive orders like nazi"s: they believe a good normal person would know better and disobey a harmful order. Those who do obey harmful orders must be bad or stupid. Fundamental attributes error the tendency to focus on the internal dispositions of obedient subordinates while underestimating situational influences. People blame personality and fail to recognize the social-situational factors. Milg(cid:396)a(cid:373)"s e(cid:454)pe(cid:396)i(cid:373)e(cid:374)ts a(cid:396)e i(cid:373)po(cid:396)ta(cid:374)t (cid:271)e(cid:272)ause it de(cid:373)o(cid:374)st(cid:396)ates the po(cid:449)e(cid:396) a(cid:374)d i(cid:374)flue(cid:374)(cid:272)e that social situations can have over people. His work provides insights into the way we perceive people who obey and demonstrating several social-situational factors that can affect the probability of destructive obedience occurring.