Do the right thing! A study on social representation of obedience and disobedience

Abstract The present research is aimed at investigating through a mixed-method approach the dimensions underlying the psychosocial constructs of obedience, disobedience and the relations between them. To this end, we consider the attitudes toward (dis)obedience being socially constructed, and we chose the theory of social representations (Abric, 2003; Moscovici, 1961) as the theoretical framework of this study. The data, collected on a sample of 190 individuals, allowed us to define these social objects, reducing both their complexity and polysemy. Obedience and disobedience were both seen by research participants as context-dependent behaviours, neither positive nor negative, per se . Also…