discuss what research into obecdience tells us about why people obey and how people might resist obedience?

Answer 1

I measure the consequence and if I do not think it too costly, tell the other to sawitoff and die or bugger off, no matter who they are!

Answer 2

People obey if a superior tells them what to do, even if they don't agree with it - for a frightening study see milgram's obedience tests. He got regular people to inflict electric shocks onto others via a button (actually they were actors in another room but the subjects didn't know this) as part of a 'learning experiment'. The participant would give a small electric shock to the actor if they answered a question wrong, with the level of the shock increasing. The actors would fake screaming and begging for the shocks to stop, but the 'scientist' would tell the participant to carry on. I think all of the participants did so, even when there was eventually a long silence on the other end of the line (implying the actor had lost consciousness and died). The participants were regular people with no history of mental disturbances or criminality. It proved that most of us are capable of inflicting terrible things on others if we are told to, and that we are programmed to obey those who we see as superiors.

I suppose one way to resist such obedience is to recognise our capacity for obeying immoral instructions, and not to pretend that only psychopathic people do so. We need to all recognise our weakness.

Answer 3

I think ppl obey when they receive positive results. What do you think?