social and psychological factors in obedience

• social-psychological explanation are to do with others, rather than external factors in the situation. 
• two specific explanations concern the dynamic surrounding social hierarchies:

  • legitimacy of authority
  • agentic state
• legitimacy of authority:

  • most societies are structured in a hierarchical way.
  • we are raised to be aware of, and to appreciate that, some people are in certain positions and therefore hold more authority than others
  • authority is made known through things like a uniform
  • authority is agreed by society, we allow certain people to exercise some social power over us in order for society to run smoothly
  • we learn this in childhoods and this is reinforced through the process of socialisation
• when leaders use their power for destructive purposes is known as ‘destructive authority’
• agentic state:

  • a mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour
  • we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure i.e. as their agent
  • because when a person does not take responsibility and instead believes that they are acting for somewhere else this can then lead to obedience by destructive authority they then do experience anxiety and powerless for them to obey
• the opposite of an agentic state is an autonomous state 
• autonomous state:

  • this is when you are free and able to according to your own principles
  • due to this freedom you are responsible for your actions
• the agentic shift:

  • this is the process of moving from autonomous state to agentic state
  • milgram argued that this occurs when we see someone else a legitimate figure of authority
  • someone else is higher up in the social hierarchy than me, therefore they have more power
• binding factors:

  • milgram observed that although may of his participants had said they wanted to stop but seemed unable to do so