AO3

• Strength:


  • A strength for situational explanations is research support for the role of the agentic state in obedience.
  • For instance, in Milgram’s studies, participants hesitated to give shocks and questioned who was responsible for harming the learner.
  • When the experimenter took responsibility, participants were relieved of accountability and more willing to follow orders, demonstrating the shift to an agentic state.
  • This supports the idea that obedience increases when individuals see themselves as acting on behalf of an authority figure.
• Weakness:

  • A limitation of situational variables is that obedience levels vary across cultures, reflecting different societal attitudes toward authority.
  • For example, Kilham and Mann found only 16% of Australian women administered the maximum 450 volts in a Milgram replication, compared to 85% of German participants in Mantell’s study.
  • These differences suggest cultural contexts shape responses to authority, such as hierarchical societal structures in Germany versus Australia's individualism, denying situational explanations of obedience universality
• Weakness:

  • Another limitation is that they cannot account for all situations where individuals resist authority.
  • For example, Rank and Jacobson found that nurses often refused a doctor's orders to administer an excessive drug dose, despite the doctor being an authority figure.
  • This suggests that the agentic shift is not always applicable, and that moral conscience can override destructive authority when ethical concerns are clear.
  • This highlights the influence of individual differences which situational explanations may not fully address, challenging their universality.