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Situational variables are depicted in a variety of ways for example they will often form an external explanation for obedience (when a person obeys an authority figure). In this paper I will carefully outline several situational variables that form a base for obedience, including location and uniform.
A situational variable is often thought of as the catalyst for obedience, one of the most significant variables discovered in Milgram’s research was the idea of uniform having a massive turning point on how participants followed the agentic state or the autonomous state. A single uniform made a great difference in the results and it was estimated that those with more of a serious authority experienced greater obedience rate. A simple example of this may be a teacher against a student, in this example people are most likely going to be obedient towards the teacher because they are older and will have more authority than students. Linking this idea of students and teachers, in 1974 Milgram proposed the idea of the agency theory which argues that we are socialized and taught from an early age to follow obedience in order for society to stay intact and stable. From this idea Milgram may be stating that because teachers are older it’s in the students’ blood to automatically respect them and look up to them to keep society stable. This idea then ties in with uniform because from a young age we are taught to respect people in professional uniforms, for example policeman. Stanley Milgram decided to play on this thought and in one of his variations he decided that the experimenter should wear a white lab coat to make him appear more ‘authoritative’ and have a respectable front but in order for Milgram to examine the efficacy and true strength of uniform he had to send the experimenter away and replace them with another participant who would be wearing ‘normal’ clothes; this person was in fact the confederate (actor). In this variation the participant decided to make things more interesting by increasing the voltage every time a mistake was made by the learner. The results revealed a lot about the power of uniform; the percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts dropped from a staggering 65% to 20% this soon revealed that obedient individuals accept the power and status of authority figures to give them orders instead of a regular person in ‘normal’ clothes. This also reveals that people are less likely to obey when the authority figure does not represent a legitimate source of authority.
Research supports this idea of uniform having more of an influence on a person’s obedience levels. In 1974, Bickman carried out a small experiment in New York. This experiment was based on picking up litter from the streets of New York. From his test it was discovered that only 19% would obey this task when he was dressed in civilian clothes, similarly only 14% would respect the task when dressed as a milkman, but 38% valued his request when he wore a security guard’s uniform. This was a clear sign that members of the public passing by had more trust in the security guard because of his authoritative nature in comparison to the milk man who just delivers milk for a living. This backs up my earlier point on how uniform is a powerful driving force that can have a massive impact on obedience levels. Not surprisingly, Bickman also discovered that even after asking the public to pick up litter in his security guard outfit and when walking away people still obeyed his command this displays the power of uniform.
Many people may argue that the location of an environment has no effect on obedience levels however this was proved otherwise. Location may be a small variable, but it has an immense effect on how well people a likely to respond to a task. In locations where it appears more professional participants are more likely to take the situation more seriously. For example, if a policeman decided to host an interview in an environment which was not related to jail, or a prison sentence, the prisoner will not take it seriously and instead will be more disobedient towards the officer, but if the meeting was held in a police station, the prisoner will feel more obedient towards the officer. This is evidence that obedience rates are often highest in institutionalized settings where obedience to authority figures is instilled into members. Linking this idea to a previous study of Milgram’s would be the fact that he decided to carry out his study in a prestigious, well-respected environment known as Yale University, which belongs to the Ivy League and has a high-status. This meant that obedience was high. Research supports the idea of location being a contributing factor to obedience levels. For example, in Milgram’s study he decided to change the location from his original place (Yale University) to an office block in a run-down part of town. This change later revealed that obedience levels dropped from 62.5% to 47.5%, which therefore suggests the sudden change in location reduces the perceived legitimacy of the authority figure.
In conclusion, it is clearly blatant that situational factors (uniform and location) have a drastic effect on obedience rates and it can change how one perceives the other. From my essay it is evident that people only obey when they believe it is a legitimate state of authority and when they feel the person is more superior than them.
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