agentic state and legitimacy of authority

• agentic state

  A person sees themselves as an agent for carrying out another person’s wishes,

  where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure.Agents still experience a moral strain when they realise what they are doing is wrong ,but they feel powerless to disobey.
• agentic shift

  Milgram referred to the process of shifting responsibility for one’s actions on to someone else as an ‘agentic shift’.It involves moving from an autonomous state where a person sees themselves as responsible for their own actions to an agentic state.
• autonomous state

  In an autonomous state one is free to behave independently and freely.
• One explanation as to why people adopt an agentic state is the need to maintain a positive self image.As the action is no longer their responsibility ,it no longer reflects their self image.
• binding factors

  people remain in an agentic state because they don’t want to deal with the hassle of overcoming the situation.In Milgram’s study in order to break off the experiment the participant must breach the commitment made to the experimenter,and they do not want to be seen as rude.So the participant remains binded into obedience.
• legitimacy of authority

  A person who is perceived to be in a position of social control within a situation.

  The first condition for a person to shift into an agentic state is the perception of a legitimate authority.People are more likely to obey those who are perceived to have more authority.This authority is justified by the individual’s position of power in the social hierarchy
• legitimate authority requires an institution

  If an authority figure’s commands are of a potentially harmful or destructive form,then for them to be perceived as legitimate they must occur in some sort of institutional structure.