Explanations for Obedience

• Obedience

  To comply with the demands of someone you see as an authority figure
• Agentic shift


  When orders come from a figure of authority we can easily deny personal responsibility because it is assumed that they will take ultimate responsibility
• Agent


  When this happens, we become 'agents' of an external authority
• Opposing sets of demands that lead to obedience


  • External authority: Authority of the authority figure
  • Internal authority: Authority of our own conscience
• Agentic shift


  The psychological adjustment or 'shift' where the fully obedient person sees themselves as an agent of external authority
• Situational Explanations


  • Look at the dynamics of social hierarchies
• Agentic state


  An individual carrying out the orders of an authority figure, acting as their agent (the shift is from autonomy to agency)
• Autonomous state

  The opposite of an agentic state and means the person has autonomy over their actions and can act according to their own principles
• Binding factors

  Aspects of the situation that mean the individual is able to take away their own 'moral strain' and ignore their damaging behaviour
• Legitimacy of authority

  • Most human societies are ordered in a hierarchical way, where some members of the group have legitimate social power above those beneath them in the hierarchy
  • We learn via socialisation that we will be accepted if we obey those who have authority over us (we trust them and/or because they have the power to punish us)
  • It is legitimate as it has been agreed by society that these positions carry power and most people accept this
• Destructive authority

  When power is used for destructive purposes
• Destructive obedience

  When obedience is used to harm others
• The agentic shift

  Cannot explain why some participants in Milgram's study did not obey
• In theory, all participants should have been in an agentic state
• The agentic shift cannot explain all obedience or obedience over long periods of time (such as in Nazi Germany)
• Blass and Schmitt (2001)

  Asked observers to explain who they thought was responsible for the harm caused to the learner in Milgram's study
• Most thought the experimenter was responsible, so supporting the agentic state explanation
• Legitimacy of authority

  Supported by cultural differences
• In countries where obedience and deference to authority are less valued (such as Australia), obedience rates are much lower than in countries that value legitimate authority figures (such as Germany)
• This again suggests that legitimacy of authority plays a part in obedience