Agentic state

• Milgram proposed that obedience to destructive authority occurs because a person becomes an "agent", someone who acts for or in place of another. In an agentic state a person feels no personal responsibility for their actions
• Autonomous state is where a person behaves according to their principles and feels responsible for their actions
• The shift from autonomy to being an "agent" is called the agentic shift. Milgram suggested that this occurs when we perceive someone else as an authority figure. This person has power because of their position in a social hierarchy
• Binding factors are aspects of a situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of the behaviour and reduce the moral state they feel
• Milgram proposed a number of strategies the individual uses, such as shifting the responsibility to the victim or denying the damage they are doing to victims
• One strength is that the agentic state explanation has research support. Most of Milgrams participants asked the experimenter "who is responsible if the learner is harmed?". When the experimenter replied "im responsible" the participants went through the procedure quickly without objecting. This shows participants acted more easily as an agent when they believed they were not responsible for their behaviour
• One limitation is the agentic shift doesn't explain many research findings. For example Rank and Jacobson found that most nurses disobeyed a doctors order to give an excessive drug overdose. The doctor was an authority figure but the nurses remained autonomous and did not shift into an agentic state. The same is true for some of Milgrams participants. This shows that agentic shist can only explain obedience in some situations