AO3 - Explanations of Obedience

• Research to support agentic state as an explanation of obedience to authority was show in Milgram's research. Most of Milgram's participants resisted giving shocks at some point and often asked the experimenter questions such as "Who is responsible if the learner is harmed?" When the experimenter responded "I am responsible", the participant carried on giving shocks. This supports agentic state as once the participants no longer believed they were responsible for their actions, they obeyed the experimenter.
• Further research to support explanations for obedience to authority was conducted by Hofling. He conducted a study using nurses on a hospital ward who were ordered by an unknown doctor to give a dangerous dose of a drug to a patient via telephone. 21 out of 22 nurses agreed even though they knew not to take orders over the phone (they were stopped beforehand). Therefore supporting legitimacy of authority because the doctor has more authority than the nurses and they accepted the doctor's status. It also supports agentic state as the nurses must have felt that the doctors were responsible.
• However, an alternative explanation for obedience is dispositional factors, for example the authoritarian personality. This argues that obedience is due to internal characteristics of the person, such as personality, for example having extreme respect for authority due to their upbringing. Therefore suggesting that obedience may not just be due to legitimacy of authority and agentic state, weakening the explanations of obedience as they are not the sole explanations.