AOOOO3

• One limitation of the agentic state is that it is unable to explain many other research findings about obedience. 

  -Rank and Jacobson (1977) found that 16 out of 18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient. 

  -Despite the doctor being an obvious authority figure, the majority of the nurses remained in an autonomous state, rather than switching to an agentic state. 

  -This does not support Milgram’s suggestion that individuals would experience the agentic shift to obey an authority figure
• One strength of the legitimacy of authority is that it can help explain how obedience can lead to real-life war crimes. 

  -In 1968, Lt. William Calley ordered American soldiers to murder over 500 unarmed innocent civilians in the Vietnamese village of My Lai. At trial, he argued that he was simply obeying orders from his commanding officer, who held rank and power over him in the structured Army hierarchy. 

  -This means the explanation has practical applications as if legitimacy of authority is a useful explanation, then there is a possibility to educate soldiers to challenge authority, in the hopes of preventing future war-crimes.
• One strength of the legitimacy explanation is that it is a useful account of cultural differences in obedience. 

  -For example, Kilham and Mann (1974) found only 16% of Australian women obeyed to 450v in a Milgram-style study, whereas Mantell (1971) found an obedience rate of 85% in German ppts. 

  -This shows that, in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals.
• A strength is that evidence to support the agentic shift comes from Milgram’s own baseline study. 

  -When refusing to continue the shocks, ppts asked the experimenter: “Who is responsible is (the learner) is harmed?”.

  -When the experimenter replied, “I am responsible”, the ppts often went through the procedure quickly with no further objections. 
• This shows that

  -once ppts perceived they were no longer personally responsible for their own behaviour, they acted more easily as the experimenter’s agent, as Milgram suggested. 
• One limitation of the agentic state is  contradictory evidence for the agentic shift in real life cases of obedience. 

  -Lifton (1986) found that ordinary medical professionals working in Auschwitz gradually transitioned into individuals capable of carrying out horrific, and potentially lethal, experiments on helpless prisoners.   

  -Staub argued that rather than the agentic shift being responsible for this transition, it is the experience of obeying and carrying out evil acts over a long time that changes the way individuals think and believe. 
• This means that

  -the shift between states is too simplistic and we need to consider other factors such as cognition to fully understand why people obey