Obedience can be defined as the act of following orders given by an authority. This authority can have different forms : it can be the law, the government, God, a parent, a superior at your job...

Obeying is consenting to bend yourself to someone else’s will and authority. In social psychology, we talk about obedience when an individual acts or changes their behavior because another individual, perceived as an authority, asked or commended it. This shows that in every form of social organization there’s a relation of authority, or domination, between individuals.

The one who’s obeying gives a certain importance to the one who gave them orders. With this type of recognition, a deal is made between the one who obeys and the superior they chose. Of course sometimes the superior establishes himself without giving any other choice to others, like a dictatorship, where citizens can't do anything but obey the dictator if they want to survive.

For some people, letting someone tell us what to do and how to act can be reassuring because we don’t have to worry about what to do and how to do it, we just have to listen to someone. For others, obedience takes our freedom away from us.

Obedience is not a bad thing, if we remain clear minded (see lucidity) when given orders. We shouldn’t blindly follow orders, we have to think and ask ourselves if those orders aren’t abusives or illegal, we can rebel if we need to.