Obedience - Social-Psychological Factors

• Agentic state


  occurs when individual feels able to pass responsibility for their actions onto an authority figure.

  individuals in state regards themselves as an 'agent' of the authority figure and no longer feels responsible or accountable for their actions.
• Autonomous state


  we are responsible for out own behaviour and therefore are likely to act according to law and conscience, as we know we are countable for our actions
• Agentic shift


  shift from being autonomous to agentic
• destructive authority


  the person is swayed to do something that goes against their conscience
• Binding factors


  aspects of situation allows person to ignore or minimise damaging effect of their behaviour thus reducing the 'moral strain' they're feeling

  Milgram observed that many of ppts said they wanted to stop but seemed powerless to do so.

  Milgram proposed several strategies that individual uses, such as shifting responsibility to victim or denying damage they were doing to victims
• Legitimacy of authority


  if someone has legitimate authority they have a role that's defined by society that gives them a right to exert their control over others

  we may obey people as we trust them, or because we believe they have the power to punish us

  may come from a person's status in society, could be conveyed by a uniform, or position in family structure
• Strength - research support for legitimacy of authority

  when Milgram moved study to a run-down office, experimenter apparently just a member of public, obedience dropped to 47.5%

  Bickman found 92% of pedestrians obeyed an order to give a stranger money for a parking meter when person giving order was dressed as a security guard, compared to 49% in ordinary clothing

  showed when authority figure has greater status they more likely to be obeyed.
• Strength - research support for agentic state

  most of ppts involved in Milgram's study resisted giving the shocks at some point.

  e.g. 'who's responsible if the learner is harmed?'

  when experimenter replied 'I'm responsible' ppts often went though procedure quickly with not further objections

  suggests once ppts perceived they were no longer responsible for own behaviour, they acted more easily as experimenter's agent.
• Strength - explains cultural differences

  many studies shows countries differ in degree which people are obedient to authority.

  Kilman and Mann found only 16% of female Australian ppts went to 450V in Milgram-style study

  Mantell found a different figure for German ppts - 85%

  shows in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demanded obedience from individuals - reflects ways different societies are structured
• Strength - agentic state as loss of personal control

  Fennis and Aarts suggest process of agentic shift isn't confined to obedience to authority

  suggest reason for 'agentic shift' is a reduction in an individual's experience of personal control

  Fennis and Aarts demonstrated a reduction in personal control resulted not only in greater obedience to authority but also in bystander apathy (tendency to remain passive in presence of unresponsive others when faced with an emergency