legitimacy of authority and agentic state

• legitimacy of authority

  An explanation for obedience which suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. This authority is justified by the individual's position of power within a social hierarchy.
• legitimacy of authority in Milgram's study

  destructive authority. Authority could have been regarded as legitimate as the researcher wore a lab coat and the location was Yale university. He also gave orders. Changing this uniform reduced obedience to 20%.
• Bickman's study 1974

  three confederates were in different uniforms - jacket and tie, milkman and security guard. They would individually stand in the street and ask passers by to complete a task. People were twice as likely to obey the security guard than the jacket and tie.
• Blass and Schmidt 2001

  a film of Milgram's study was shown to participants and they were asked whether it was the teacher or the experimenter responsible for the harm of the learner. Participants said the experimenter because he was higher in the hierarchy and had legitimate authority.
• what is agentic state

  A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure. I.e as an agent.
• what is an autonomous state

  a state of free thinking and control of self.
• what remarks from Milgram's participants show agentic state.

  I don't want to be responsible for anything that happens to him. I refuse to take responsibility. Most of Milgram's participants resisted to give shocks at some point, but when the experimenter replies "I'm responsible." The learner carries on without further objections.
• Limitation of agentic state - Steven Rank and Cardell Jacobson 1977

  16 out of 18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer excessive drug doses to a patient. Almost all nurses remained autonomous. Suggests agentic shift only accounted for some situations of obedience.
• strength and limitation of agentic state - My Lai Massacre

  The soldiers acted as an agent for Calley and carried out orders without protest. HOWEVER, they went much further than the orders, such as raping women, killing animals and burning buildings.
• what are the situational explanations for obedience?

  uniform, location, proximity, legitimacy of authority, agentic state.