situational explanations of obedience

• Obedience variation


  • Australians only 16% went up to 450, but 85% of Germans went up to 450
  • In some cultures, authority is more likely to be perceived as legitimate, reflecting societies' structure
• Obedience influenced by experimenter's appearance

  • Participants obeyed more when experimenter wore a lab coat compared to casual clothes
  • The uniform makes the experimenter appear more legitimate, which supports that people are more likely to obey when the authority appears legitimate
• In Milgram's study, 35% did not obey all the way up to 450, even though the authority figure was seen as legitimate
• This suggests there are other factors such as individual variables that the situational explanation doesn't account for
• Agentic theory


  • Moral strain - participants know what they're doing is wrong but feel powerless to disobey
  • Agentic state - acting as an agent for an authority figure, passing responsibility to the authority figure
  • Autonomous state - acting out of free will and taking responsibility for actions
  • Agentic shift - shifting from autonomy to agency
• Research supports the agentic theory from Milgram's study
• Participants' sense of responsibility


  • When participants thought they were not responsible anymore (experienced an agentic shift), they followed destructive orders
  • When participants were asked who was responsible and said "the experimenter and I", they carried on
• Research supports the moral strain explanation, as participants in Milgram's study were sweating in distress, supporting that they experienced a moral strain before an agentic shift