When is obedience bad

Obeying orders from an authority figure can sometimes lead to disturbing behavior. This danger was illustrated in a famous study in which participants were instructed to administer painful electric shocks to another person in what they believed to be a learning experiment. Despite vehement protests from the person receiving the shocks, most participants continued the procedure when instructed to do so by the experimenter.

The findings raise questions about the power of blind obedience in deplorable situations such as atrocities and genocide. They also raise concerns about the ethical treatment of participants in psychology experiments. When he was a teenager, my son often enjoyed looking at photographs of me and my wife taken when we were in high school.

Everyday observation confirms that we often adopt the actions and attitudes of the people around us. Trends in clothing, music, foods, and entertainment are obvious. But our views on political issues, religious questions, and lifestyles also reflect to some degree the attitudes of the people we interact with.

Similarly, decisions about behaviors such as smoking and drinking are influenced by whether the people we spend time with engage in these activities. Psychologists refer to this widespread tendency to act and think like the people around us as conformity.

What causes all this conformity? To start, humans may possess an inherent tendency to imitate the actions of others. Although we usually are not aware of it, we often mimic the gestures, body posture, language, talking speed, and many other behaviors of the people we interact with.

Beyond this automatic tendency to imitate others, psychologists have identified two primary reasons for conformity. The first of these is normative influence. When normative influence is operating, people go along with the crowd because they are concerned about what others think of them.

Fitting in also brings rewards such as camaraderie and compliments. How powerful is normative influence? Consider a classic study conducted many years ago by Solomon Asch The participants were male college students who were asked to engage in a seemingly simple task. An experimenter standing several feet away held up a card that depicted one line on the left side and three lines on the right side.

Sixteen cards were presented one at a time, and the correct answer on each was so obvious as to make the task a little boring. Except for one thing. The participant was not alone. In fact, there were six other people in the room who also gave their answers to the line-judgment task aloud.

Moreover, although they pretended to be fellow participants, these other individuals were, in fact, confederates working with the experimenter. The mistake might have been amusing, except the second participant gave the same answer. As did the third, the fourth, and the fifth participant. Suddenly the real participant was in a difficult situation. His eyes told him one thing, but five out of five people apparently saw something else.

But, would participants intentionally give a wrong answer just to conform with the other participants? The confederates uniformly gave incorrect answers on 12 of the 16 trials, and 76 percent of the participants went along with the norm at least once and also gave the wrong answer. In total, they conformed with the group on one-third of the 12 test trials. Although we might be impressed that the majority of the time participants answered honestly, most psychologists find it remarkable that so many college students caved in to the pressure of the group rather than do the job they had volunteered to do.

In almost all cases, the participants knew they were giving an incorrect answer, but their concern for what these other people might be thinking about them overpowered their desire to do the right thing.

This last finding is consistent with the notion that participants change their answers because they are concerned about what others think of them. Compared with individualistic cultures, people who live in collectivist cultures place a higher value on the goals of the group than on individual preferences. They also are more motivated to maintain harmony in their interpersonal relations. The other reason we sometimes go along with the crowd is that people are often a source of information.

Psychologists refer to this process as informational influence. Most of us, most of the time, are motivated to do the right thing. If everybody is completely and totally obedient, Then society is better off for everybody.

We maintain silence in the library. We don't litter. We are mindful of people's feelings. We dont't steal. In all the above instances, we obey. We are following certain guidelines imposed by law or understood by society or simply taught to us as good manners by parents.

In all these cases, obedience is not wrong. It simply makes you a better person. But this comes with a caveat. Following a wrong example can make all the difference. By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Google Search. Post Your Opinion. Create New Poll. Sign In Sign Up. Add a New Topic. Is obedience a bad quality? Asked by: eldarwen. Obedience is bad Obedience is just listening to your parents boss you around everyday.

Report Post. Like Reply. This brings in the factor of conformity, which is viewed to social psychologist as placing impact on social value. This is not seen as one-sided; instead means of positive or negative attributes can occur Terry, Conformity is a very common form of social influence.

It is when members of a group begin to act or even deliberate. Social Influences on Behavior There are many social influences which have an effect or lasting effect on the behavior of an individual. Within many group scenarios, conformity and obedience play a large role in how people tend to think and behave, especially if they get carried away.

Obedience refers to compliance to an authority figure or with others in a group. On the other hand, conformity refers to an individual changing their thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors to accommodate with the standards. Within these categories, researches have attempted to map the effectiveness of parenting styles and the positive and negative outcomes of each. Despite the eclectic and commonly erratic nature of family structures, practices, and norms, we can start to break apart the authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved parenting styles, in attempt to recognize the.

Just about everyone obeys someone or something on a daily basis without even thinking about it. It is normal and useful for keeping law and order in a common civilized society. Obedience is not a bad thing, it is just a way of controlling people. However, the opposite end of obedience is disobedience which is usually viewed as bad, especially in the context of a societal view.

Both obedience and disobedience serve a purpose, from positive control through obedience, to denying. Both obedience and disobedience. Throughout the years obedience has had an enormous effect on human history.