Briefly summarize Milgram's study results and then list and ...

[stevenposner]

Briefly summarize Milgram's study results and then list and explain the factors that affect the degree of obedience.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Juan Worthman is the president of High-Tech Haven. He wants all his employees to dress professionally. At the monthly staff meeting, he talks about the effect of appearance on work performance. However, he does not want to create a dress code or enforce a rule concerning people's dress. Worthman appoints Jill Marinez, a manager, to get the employees to dress professionally or to achieve conformity without exerting power. How should Marinez accomplish this? List the characteristics of the situation she will need to take into account.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[AmberC1996]

Answer to Question 1

ANSWER:

Most of Milgram's subjects obeyed the experimenter and delivered 450 volts of shock, even though they believed that serious harm had come to the person they were shocking. Researchers found that three factors affected these results.
One factor is prestige. People will obey a prestigious figure more than a nonprestigious one. However, people tend to obey authority figures, even if the figure is not particularly reputable or distinguished.
A second factor is the presence of others who disobey. If other people are present and they disobey, the level of obedience drops dramatically. This is the most powerful factor in reducing obedience.
The last factor involves personality characteristics. People high in authoritarianism or with an external locus of control are more likely to comply.

Answer to Question 2

ANSWER:
To establish conformity to an unstated dress code, Marinez needs to consider several characteristics of the situation. People are more likely to conform in situations that are ambiguous. The managers could begin to dress professionally and recruit colleagues to do likewise. Each manager could give different, plausible reasons for his or her change in dress. These actions should create an ambiguous situation, and employees would be more likely to follow the new group norm. People experience great pressure to conform when the majority is all doing the same thing. If all the managers began to dress professionally, their united front would pressure the other employees to follow suit. If the employees believe that each manager independently arrived at the decision to dress professionally, then the more managers who did so, the greater the conformity would be.