Situational factors

• Who provides the factor for situational explanations?

  Milgram
• What is the first explanation for obedience?

  Legitimate authority
• What is legitimate authority?

  • Figure hold power defined by society
  • We are raised to believe that certain figures have authority over others and the right to control behaviour
  • An example of this is uniform, can be seen in police and scientists
• What is one evaluation of legitimate authority?

  • Milgram's variation shows this
  • One variation changed the location
  • The obedience rate dropped from 65% to 48%
  • Shows prestige of Yale was a source of authority
  • Shows the importance of authority in obedience
• What is another evaluation of legitimate authority?

  • Milgram's variation shows this
  • This variation changed the clothing that the researcher wore instead
  • Researcher wears civilian clothing instead of a white lab coat
  • Obedience drops from 65% to 20%
  • When prestige of lab coat is removed, there is a drop in obedience
• What is the second explanation for obedience?

  Graduated commitment
• What is graduated commitment?

  • Feature of Milgram's experiments is that it used small voltage increases on the shock generator.
  • The volt increments seemed so small that the p's kept administering the shock
  • The volts only had 15V increments
  • This is called the foot in the door effect
  • People comply with a trivial task and can't say no to more serious ones
• What is an evaluation of graduated commitment?

  • Milgram's study itself shows this
  • There were many small but harmless demands, increasing the serious nature
  • There were 3 main 'harmless' escalations
  • The participant agreed to take part in the experiment
  • The participant drew lots to determine teacher
  • The last was to deliver the small volt gaps
• What is another evaluation of graduated commitment?

  • Real life evidence can be seen from salesmen.
  • A window salesman asks whether they can come in and then a free quote
  • Then follows on is the cleaning of every single window.
• What is the 3rd explanation for obedience?

  Agentic state
• What are the two stages of agentic state?

  • The agency theory operates on 2 separate levels:
  • As autonomous individuals with voluntary behaviour and aware of consequences
  • Agentic level where people see themselves as ‘agents’ of other people and not seeing themselves as responsible
• What is the agentic shift?

  • The shift between being autonomous and being agentic is called the ‘agentic shift’
  • The autonomous individuals are not responsible for any actions but that the authority figure is responsible instead.
  • Milgram argued people are mindless when being in this agentic state.
• What is an evaluation for Agentic State?

  • In Milgram’s study, there were many p’s that denied personal responsibility
  • They said that they did as the experimenter told them to do so.
  • When p’s objected, the experimenter told them ‘I am responsible’.
• What is another evaluation for agentic state?

  • From an early age, Milgram said that children are brought up to be obedient at home, in school and in society
  • They are also taught that the agentic state is part of the socialisation process.
  • Binding factors keep people in the agentic state like fear of appearing rude or arrogant disrupting a social situation like a lab experiment.
• What is a general evaluation for situational explanations?

  • Counter evidence comes from individual differences (dispositional factors).
  • All p’s in Milgram’s experiments were exposed to the same situation but not all of them obeyed as 35% of participants disobeyed.
  • Due to dispositional factors like personality or experiences differences that affect obedience.
  • For example, a Jewish woman from Nazi Germany explained that she could not harm people due to seeing what being forced to do things feels like