Search results for "Obedience"
showing 2 items of 22 documents
Humor and Disobedience : Understanding Controversial Humor
2016
In this article, I analyze controversial humor and argue that the concept of disobedience is of central importance when evaluating, for instance, harsh or potentially hurtful jokes. Following social critic Erich Fromm (1900– 1980) I claim that disobedience is a dialectic concept: that is, it includes the possibilities both to affirm and to reject. This observation connects humor to other values, and pivotal is how humor is related to the question of what it means to be a human being. Through this insight, I argue that controversial humor may shock and be offensive, or it can be amusing and even have a cathartic effect. In the end, in evaluating humor it is necessary to analyze the values be…
On the dynamics of disobedience: experimental investigations of defying unjust authority.
2017
Across six Experimental conditions with university student participants (N=600), we examined some of the dynamics underlying expressed defiance to unjust authority. Results revealed disobedience was best enacted by participants low in right-wing authoritarianism and was more likely to occur when: 1) in physical proximity of other rebels, 2) the authority made two demanding requests instead of one, and 3) there had been an earlier opposition to injustice. Results are discussed within the theoretical framework of bounded rationality.