Obedience - situational explanations

• what is the agentic state? where we fail to take responsibility as we believe we are acting on behalf of an authority figure
• what was milgrams interest in the agentic state sparked by? Adolf Eichmann 1961 trial - he was in charge of nazi death camps and said 'he was only obeying orders
• what is the autonomous state? We feel free of other influences and so take personal responsibility for our actions.
• what is the agentic shift? the shift from autonomous to agentic state as we perceive someone else is an authority figure to be obeyed
• what did mikgram find that his participants wanted to do? they wanted to stop but felt powerless to do so
• what did milgram find as to why participants remained in the agentic state? due to binding factors
• what are binding factors? aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effects of their behaviour and reduce the moral strain they are feeling
• what is legitimacy of authority? some people have positions of authority because they have been trusted by society with certain powers e.g teachers
• what are societies?


  hierarchical
• example of someone with legitimate authority: policeman - agreed by society
• why must he accept that authority figures must be able to exercise social power? it allows society to function smoothly - consequences of this is legitimate authors
• where do we learn acceptance of legitimate authority? from childhood (parents, teachers, adults)
• what is destructive authority? When a Legitimate Authority becomes destructive.
• example of when a legitimate authority became destructive: Hitler

  Evident in milgrams study when experimenter used prods to order pps to behave against their consciencesb
• real life example of legitimate authority: my lai massacre / milgrams findings explain this
• When was the My Lai Massacre? March 1968, vietnam war, 504 civilians killed, women raped, buildings blew up

  Calley said he was 'just following orders
• agentic state - strengths: P - supported by milgrams study of obedience

  E - pps resisted giving shocks at some point and asked experimenter questions like 'who is responsible if mr wallace is harmed' and when experimenter responded 'im responsible' the pps went through with it

  T - pps acted more easily as experimenters agent when they perceived they weren't responsible for their behaviour
• agentic state - weaknesses: P - agentic shift doesn't explain research findings about obedience

  E - fails to explain findings of steven rank and cardell jacobsen's 1977 study

  they found that 16/17 nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive amount of drug to patient

  T - agentic shift only accounts for some situations of obedience
• legitimacy of authority - strengths: P - explains cultural differences

  E - studies show countries differ in the degree that people obey authority

  - wesley kilham and leon Mann 1974 found 16% of Aussie women went to 450 volts in milgram style study but David Montell 1972 found it to be 85% for germans

  T - in some cultures authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals - reflects how diff societies are structured and how children are raised to perceive authority figures
• legitimacy of authority - weaknesses: P / can't explain disobedience in a hierarchy where legitimacy of authority is clear and accepted

  E - nurses in Rank and Jacobsens study disobeyed despite working in a rigid hierarchical structure - some of milgrams pps disobeyed despite recognising experimenters scientific authority