Obedience: situational explanations

• What are the two situational explanations of obedience


  Agentic state, legitimacy of authority
• 1. what is the 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.
• 1. what is an autonomous state


  autonomy means to be independent of free. so a person in an autonomous state behaves according to their principles and feels responsible for their actions.
• 1. what is the agentic shift

  the shift from autonomy to being an agent is called the agentic shift. milgram suggested that this occurs when we perceive someone else as an authority figure. this person has power because of their position in the social hierarchy.
• 1. what are binding factors


  bindings factors are aspects of a situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and reduce the moral strain they feel

  milgram proposed a number of strategies the individual uses, such as shifting the responsibility to the victim or denying the damage they are doing to victime
• one strength of the agentic state explanation is that there is research support

  most of milgrams participants asked the experimenter ‘who is responsible if the learner is harmed’. when the experimenter replied with ‘I’m responsible‘ the participants went through the procedure quickly without objecting. this shows participants acted more easily as an agent when they believed they were not responsible for their behaviour.
• one limitation is the agentic shift doesnt explain many research findings. 


  For example Rank and Jacobson (1977) found that most nurses disobeyed a doctors order to give an excessive drug overdose. The doctor was an authority figure but the nurses remained autonomous and did not shift into an agentic state. The same is true for some of miligramos participants. This shows that agentic shift can only explain obedience in some situations.
• 2. legitimacy of authority - we obey people further up a social hierarchy


  most societies are structured hierarchically. People in certain positions hold authority over the rest of us e.g. parents, teachers, police officers, nightclub bouncers.
• 2. authorities have legitimacy through societies agreement

  the power that authorities wield is legitimate because its agreed by society. most of us accept that authority figures should exercise social power over others to allow society to function smoothly.
• 2. we hand over control to authority figures

  people with legislate authority have the power to punish others. we give up some independence to people we trust to exercise authority properly. we learn to accept authority during childhood (parents, teachers etc)
• 2. leaders use legitimate powers for destructive purposes 


  history has shown that some leaders e.g. hitler use legitimate authority destructively, ordering people to behave in cruel and dangerous ways.
• one strength is that legitimacy can explain cultural differences

  research shows that countries differ in obedience to authority. for example 16% of Australian women obeyed (Kilian and Mann 1974) and 85% of German participants did (Mantell 1971). this shows that authority is more likely seen as legitimate in some cultures, reflecting upbringing
• one limitation is legitimacy cannot explain all (dis)obedienice


  people may disobey even when they accept the legitimacy of the hierarchical authority structure. for example, most of rank and Jacobson nurses were disobedient, as were some of milgrams participants. this suggests that innate tendencies towards (dis)obedience may be more important than legitimacy of authority