Situational Explanations

• Agentic State


  believe they are acting on behalf of someone else. Follow orders blindly and do not take responsibility for their actions
• Autonomous State


  acting on their own beliefs and responsibilities for own actions. Independent
• Agentic Shift


  Milgram called the change from an autonomous state to an agentic state. This happens when a figure of authority is present
• Binding Factors


  Allows individuals to ignore the damaging effects of their obedient behaviour
• Legitimacy of authority


  we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. This authority is justified by the individual's position of power within a social hierarchy.
• AO3 Situational Explanations

  Strength

  P - Milgrams original study supports the role of agentic state

  E -some participants asked the experimenter who was responsible if the Lerner got hurt. When the experimenter said he was participants went through the procedure with no further objections

  C - This shows that once participants perceived they were not responsible for their behaviour they acted as the participants agent

   

  Weakness

  P - does not explain many research findings about obedience

  E - Rank and Jacobson study found that 16 of 18 hospital nurses disobeyed authority from a doctor.

  C - This suggests the agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience

   
• AO3 Legitimacy of Authority

  Strength

  P - legitimacy explains cultural differences

  E - studies show that countries differ to how obedient people are. Only 16% of Australian women went to 450V compared to 85% of German women

  C - shows in some cultures authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate which reflects societal structure

   

  Weakness

  P - cannot explain all disobedience

  E - some of Milgram's participants did disobey despite recognising the experimenters legitimate authority. This suggests some people may be more or less obedient than others

  C - it is possible that innate tendencies to obey or disobey have greater influence on behaviour than legitimacy of an authority figure