Agentic state & Legitimacy of authority

• What is an agentic state?


  When a person sees themself as an agent for carrying out another person's wishes
• What is the autonomous state?


  When a person believes that they are responsible for their own actions
• What is an agentic shift?


  When a person moves from an autonomous state to an agentic state
• How was agentic shift shown in Milgram's study

  When asked to give higher shocks participants first asked if they would be responsible if anything bad happened before giving the shocks.
• What happened when Milgram asked the participants why they gave the electric shocks?

  They said that they were just doing as they were told
• How can self-image cause an agentic state?


  One reason is that they move into an agentic state so that they are no longer responsible for their actions regardless of how inhumane they are.
• How can binding factors keep someone in an agentic state?

  In order to leave an agentic state the person must break off their commitment, however they don't want to be viewed in a negative way so they remain in the agentic state
• What is the legitimacy of authority?

  A person who is perceived to be in a position of social control within a situation
• How is the power of legitimate authority shown in Milgram's study?

  As the experimenter fits the participant's image of a legitimate authority they don't challenge the experimenter
• How did the legitimate authority define the situation in Milgram's study?

  Even though the participants were giving electric shocks they allow the experimenter define its meaning by reassuring them that the person is not hurt
• Why is location important regarding legitimate authority?


  The person that is perceived to be the legitimate authority needs to be in an appropriate setting in order for it to be effective e.g a professor in a science lab
• Who conducted research into gradual commitment?


  Lifton (1986)
• What happened in Lifton's (1986) study?


  In his study of German doctors he observed then change from caring doctors to men and women capable of carrying out lethal experiments on helpless prisoners.
• How does this show a weakness in the agency theory?

  Milgram suggested people rapidly shifted states however it fails to explain the very gradual transition that Lifton witnessed
• Why is it a weakness that the participants were paid?


  Because they may have remained in the experiment and obeyed the orders only because they were being paid.
• If the participants only stayed because they were paid then what does this tell us?

  That the results may be invalid as the researchers may not have been testing obedience as money was another factor, reducing the study's validity.
• What did Tarnow (2000) investigate?


  A series of aircraft crashes
• What did Tarnow (2000) find out?


  flight crew actions contributed to the crashes because although they saw the captain taking a risky route, they said nothing.
• How does Tarnow (2000) investigation support legitimacy of authority?


  Like in Milgram's study where they accepted the experimenters definition of events they assumed the captain knew what he was doing as he is in a position of authority- even if they could tell it was wrong.
• What is another possible explanation for why the participants acted the way they did in Milgram's study?


  The participants may have just been expressing their sadistic impulses
• What experiment shows why the participants may have acted the way they did because of their sadistic impulses?

  Stanford Prison Experiment because it showed how the participants acted cruelly despite the fact that there was no authority figure.
• If the participants acted the way they did because of sadistic impulses then what does this mean?

  That the behaviour in Milgram's study may not be caused by agentic shift and this shows a limitation of the theory.
• Why may the agentic state explanation suffer from gender bias?

  It mainly focuses on men and not women?
• Why does the agentic state theory apply mainly to men?


  The theory is based on Milgram's study however the participants in that study were male.
• If the agentic state theory suffers from gender bias, what does this mean?

  That the theory is unrepresentative as it explains why men may enter an agentic state but not women.