Situational Explanation

• What are the two situational explanations for obedience?

  • Agentic state
  • Legitimacy of authority
• What is agentic state?

  Mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour as we are acting for an authority figure, we are freed from consequence
• What is autonomous state?

  Person who behaves according to their own principles and feels responsible for their actions
• What is agentic shift?

  The shift from autonomous state to agentic state
• What are binding factors?

  Aspects of situation that allow the person to ignore/minimise the damaging effects of their behaviour and reducing the moral strain
• What is legitimacy of authority?

  We are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us, justified by the individuals position of power
• Why is the power that authorities wield legitimate?

  It is agreed by society, most accept that authority figures have power over others
• Strength of agentic state:

  • Research support
  • Most of Milgram's participants asked who was responsible for any harm, the experimenter said “I am responsible“ and participants carried on without objecting
• Limitation of agentic state:

  • Agentic shift doesn’t explain many research findings.
  • Rank and Jacobson found that most nurses disobeyed a doctors order to give an excessive drug dose, the nurses remained autonomous and didn’t shift into an agentic state
• Strength of legitimacy of authority:

  • Can explain cultural differences
  • Research shows different countries differ in obedience to authority. for example 16% of Australian women obeyed in a study whereas 85% of German participants obeyed
• Limitation of legitimacy of authority:

  • Can’t explain all (dis)obedience. people may disobey even in a hierarchal structure.
  • Rank and Jacobson's nurses were disobedient to the Dr