Situational explanations

• AO1 - 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.
• AO1 - autonomous state

  • ‘Autonomy’ means to be independent or free.
  • So a person in an autonomous state behaves according to their principles and feels responsible for their actions.
• AO1 - agentic shift

  • The shift from autonomy to being an ‘agent’ is the agentic shift.
  • Milgram suggested that this occurs when we perceive someone else as an authority figure.
  • This person has greater power as they have a higher position in a social hierarchy.
• AO1 - binding factors

  • Binding factors are aspects of a situation that allow people to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and reduce the ‘moral strain’ they are feeling.
  • Milgram proposed a number of strategies that the individual uses, such as shifting the responsibility to the victim or denying the damage they are doing to victims.
• AO1 - social hierarchy

  • Most societies are structured hierarchically.
  • People in certain positions (parents, teachers, police officers) hold authority over the rest of us at times.
• AO1 - authorities are agreed by society

  • The power that authorities have is legitimate as it‘s agreed by society.
  • Most of society accept that authority figures should exercise social power over others to allow society to function smoothly.
• AO1 - control to authority figures

  • People with legitimate authority have the power to punish others (police and courts have the power to punish wrongdoers).
  • We give up some independence to people we trust to exercise authority properly.
  • We learn acceptance of authority during childhood (parents and teachers).
• AO1 - Hilter

  History has shown that some leaders (Hilter) use legitimate authority destructively.
• AO3 - ✔️agentic state explanation has research support


  • Most of Milgram’s participants asked the experimenter questions, e.g. ‘who is responsible if the learner is harmed’.
  • When the experimenter replied ‘I’m responsible’, participants often went through the procedure quickly with no further objections.
  • Shows that once participants perceived that they were no longer responsible for their own behaviour they acted more easily as the experimenter’s agent.
• AO3 - ✖️agentic shift doesn’t explain many research findings 


  • Rank and Jacobson found that 16/18 nurses disobeyed a doctor’s order to give an excessive drug dose.
  • The doctor was an authority figure but almost all nurses remained autonomous.
  • Shows that the agentic state can only account for some situations of obedience.
• AO3 - ✔️the legitimacy explanation is that it can explain cultural differences 


  • Research shows that countries differ in obedience to authority.
  • E.g. 16% of Australian women obeyed and 85% of German participants obeyed in a Milgram-style study.
  • Shows that authority is more likely seen as legitimate in some cultures, reflecting their upbringing.
• AO3 - ✖️legitimacy can’t explain all (dis)obedience 


  • People may disobey even when they accept the legitmacy of the hierarchical authority structure.
  • E.g. most of Rank and Jacobson’s participants were disobedient, as well a minority of Milgram’s participants.
  • Suggests that innate tendencies towards (dis)obedience may be more important than legitimacy of authority.