Who Will Defy Authority? Personality Features and Destructive Obedience in the Milgram Paradigm PDF
Preview Who Will Defy Authority? Personality Features and Destructive Obedience in the Milgram Paradigm
The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Dissertations Spring 5-2014 Who Will Defy Authority? Personality Features and Destructive Obedience in the Milgram Paradigm Ashton Caroline Southard University of Southern Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations Part of the Applied Behavior Analysis Commons, Clinical Psychology Commons, Counseling Psychology Commons, Personality and Social Contexts Commons, and the Social Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Southard, Ashton Caroline, "Who Will Defy Authority? Personality Features and Destructive Obedience in the Milgram Paradigm" (2014). Dissertations. 240. https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/240 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact The University of Southern Mississippi WHO WILL DEFY AUTHORITY? PERSONALITY FEATURES AND DESTRUCTIVE OBEDIENCE IN THE MILGRAM PARADIGM by Ashton Caroline Southard Abstract of a Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of doctor of Philosophy ABSTRACT WHO WILL DEFY AUTHORITY? PERSONALITY FEATURES AND DESTRUCTIVE OBEDIENCE IN THE MILGRAM PARADIGM by Ashton Caroline Southard May 2014 The present study examined the potential role of individual differences in personality in the likelihood of engaging in destructive obedience to authority within a modified version of the Stanley Milgram paradigm (Milgram, 1963, 1974). Personality features examined included the Big Five dimensions of agreeableness, openness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion, and the dimensions of the Dark Triad, which consist of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Participants were 39 undergraduates enrolled in introductory psychology classes who participated in exchange for partial fulfillment of a research requirement. Data were collected in two phases. Phase 1 consisted of online completion of personality measures. Phase 2 consisted of an in-person laboratory session in which participants engaged in an ostensible learning task. Via a rigged drawing, participants were always assigned the role of “Teacher” and an actor posing as another participant was always assigned the role of “Learner.” Participants were tasked with conducting a paired-associates learning test consisting of 15 trials with the Learner via a computer. Participants were also instructed to administer escalating electric shocks as punishment to the Learner for every incorrect response. Each time participants indicated reluctance to continue with the learning task the Experimenter would urge them to continue by issuing a series of four increasingly ii demanding prods. The session ended if the participant refused to continue after the Experimenter had issued all four prods on a single trial or if the participant continued to trial 15. In reality, no electric shocks were actually administered and all of the Learner’s responses were prerecorded. Results of logistic regression analyses revealed no meaningful associations between obedience and personality features. Due to low variability in rates of obedience, two additional variables were computed, which reflected participants’ reluctance to obey. The first variable reflected the number of prods from the Experimenter each participant required during their session and the second variable reflected the trial on which participants required the first prod. Regression analyses revealed that only the Big Five dimension of conscientiousness significantly associated with participants’ reluctance to obey, such that individuals higher in conscientiousness were more reluctant to obey the Experimenter. iii COPYRIGHT BY ASHTON CAROLINE SOUTHARD 2014 The University of Southern Mississippi WHO WILL DEFY AUTHORITY? PERSONALITY FEATURES AND DESTRUCTIVE OBEDIENCE IN THE MILGRAM PARADIGM by Ashton Caroline Southard A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved: ____Dr. Alen Hajnal___________________ Director ____Dr. Virgil Zeigler-Hill______________ ____Dr. Don Sacco____________________ ____Dr. Kenji Noguchi_________________ ____Dr. Maureen A. Ryan______________ Dean of the Graduate School May 2014 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my wonderful advisor, Dr. Virgil Zeigler-Hill, for all of his insight and help with this project and for all of his hard work and time spent training me to be the scientist I am today. I owe special thanks to the members of my committee for their valuable input. I would also like to thank all of the research assistants who were involved in this project for their time and commitment. Lastly, I would like to thank my family for all of their love and support over the years. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................iv LIST OF TABLES ...........................................................................................................vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ...........................................................................................vii CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................1 Introduction to Obedience Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Studies Alternative Methodologies for Studying Obedience Ethical Developments in Obedience Research Individual Differences and Obedience Overview and Predictions II. METHOD ................................................................................................48 Participants Measures Procedure Data Analytic Strategy III. RESULTS ................................................................................................63 Tests of Hypotheses Exploratory Analyses Additional Analyses IV. DISCUSSION ..........................................................................................77 Review of Findings Limitations and Future Directions Conclusions APPENDIXES .................................................................................................................88 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................91 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Script for the Session ...........................................................................................57 2. Means and Standard Deviations for all Personality Variables Included in the Model ...................................................................................................................63 3. Overall Model Evaluation ....................................................................................64 4. Observed and Predicted Frequencies for Disobedience .......................................65 5. Logistic Regression Predicting Likelihood of Disobedience ...............................65 6. Intercorrelations for Personality Features and Reluctance to Obey Variables ....71 7. Multiple Regression Analysis Examining the Impact of Personality Features on Reluctance to Obey Variables ..............................................................................72 8. Principle Components Analysis Factor Loadings of the Dark Triad ...................75 vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1. Voltage Selection Screen – Trial 4 ......................................................................59 vii
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