Situational explanations

• What is the Agentic state as an explanation for obedience?

  A state of mind in which the individual believes they don’t have responsibility for their behaviour as they are the agent of an authority figure.

  This allows the individuals to commit acts that they personally and morally oppose.
• What happens to people in the Agentic state?

  They may feel discomfort because of their actions but can’t resist to obey.
• What is the opposite of an Agentic state?

  An autonomous state.

  Where an individual’s actions are free from control.
• What is the Agentic shift?

  Moving from an autonomous state to Agentic state
• What historical event means the Agentic state is problematic?

  It has been used to justify war crimes.

  For example, Eichman, a Nazi who oversaw death camps in the holocaust claimed he was only following orders
• How does Blass and Smitt’s research support Agentic state and LOC?

  When shown videos of Milgram’s original stuidy, many participants also placed the responsibility for the electric shocks on the authority figure and not with the participant
• What is legitimacy of authority as an explanation of obedience?

  Individuals accept others higher up the social hierarchy should be obeyed, there is a sense of duty to them and these people have the right to punish others.

  Such as the police force and criminal justice system
• Why so people accept the legitimacy of authority?

  The legitimacy of authority is learnt in childhood through socialisation processes.

  Most people accept that the legitimacy of authority is needed for society to function properly
• Why may there be alternative dispositional explanations of obedience?

  There are individual differences in the Agentic state and respect for the legitimacy of authority.

  • E.g. in Milgram’s study, 35% of participants resisted the authority of the experimenter and refused to deliver the 450-shock to the learner
• How does Milgram’s (1963) research support Agentic state and LOC?

  Professor occupiers a high level in social hierarchy.

  Participants often agreed to continue with shocks after the professor said he was responsible

  Obedience dropped when the instructor had no uniform
• What are the 2 situational explanations of obedience?

  Agentic state and legitimacy of authority
• What is the Agentic state?

  Psychological state where individuals feel a diminished sense of personal responsibility and defer to authority figures.
• Milgram’s proposed that obedience to destructive authority occurs because someone becomes an agent who acts for someone else
• In an Agentic state a person feels no personal responsibility for their actions.
• What is an autonomous state?

  When someone is free to behave according to their own principles and feels responsible for their actions
• What is an Agentic shift?

  Moving from autonomy to an Agentic state

  Milgram suggested this occurs when we perceive someone else as an authority figure who has power because of their position in a social hierarchy
• What are binding factors?

  Aspects of a situation that allow someone to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and reduce the moral strain they feel.
• Milgram’s proposed a number of strategies the individual uses, such as shifting responsibility to the victim or denying the damage they’re doing to victims
• Legitimacy of authority

  Acceptance or justification of power or authority.
• We obey people further up a social hierarchy who hold authority over us
• The power of authorities is legitimate as it’s agreed by society

  • most of us accept that authority figures should exercise social power over others to allow society to function smoothly
• People with legitimate authority have the power to punish others

  • we give up some independence to people we trust to exercise authority properly
  • we learn to accept authority during childhood
• Leaders use legitimate powers for destructive purposes

  • History has shown that some leaders use legitimate authority destructively by ordering people to behave in crual and dangerous ways
• Research support for the Agentic state- A03

  Most of Milgram’s participants asked the experimenter who is responsible if the learner is harmed.

  • when the experimenter replied ”I’m responsible” the participants went throught the procedure quickly without objecting

  shows participants acted more easily as an agent when they weren’t responsible for their behaviour
• Agentic shift doesn’t explain many research findings- A03

  Rank and Jacobson (1977)

  • found that most nurses disobeyed a doctor’s order to give an excessive dose of a drug
  • the doctor was an authority figure but the nurses remained autonomous and didn’t shift into an Agentic state

  the same is true for some of Milgram’s participants.

  Shows that Agentic shift can only explain obedience in some situations
• Real world situation- A03

  Men of Battalion 101 didn’t have direct orders to shoot civilians in a Polish town

  • even so they carried out a massacre while behaving autonomously

  this suggests that the Agentic shift isn’t required for destructive behaviour
• Legitimacy can explain cultural differences- A03

  Research shows that countries differ in obedience to authority.

  • E.g. 16% of Australian women obeyed and 85% of German participants obeyed

  shows that authority is more likely seen as legitimate in some cultures
• Legitimacy of authority can’t explain all disobedience- A03

  People may disobey even when they accept the legitimacy of the hierarchical authority structure.

  e.g. most of Rank and Jacobson’s nurses were disobedient just like some of Milgram’s participants

  this suggests that innate tendencies towards disobedience may be more important than legitimacy of authority
• Real-world crimes of obedience- A03

  Research shows that some people disobey legitimate authority like Rank and Jacobson’s nurses

  But soldiers at My Lai obeyed their commanding officer

  • had more power to punish than that of a doctor
  • real life situation

  so there’s evidence from real world situations that respect for legitimate authority can lead to destructive obedience