social-psychological factors: obedience

• Social-psychological factors is concerned with the influence of others as opposed to the situation
• social-psychological factors suggest obedience to destructive authority occurs because a person does not take responsibility
• Milgram (1973) proposed the concept of an agentic state to explain why people are prepared to go against their conscience and do as they are told even if it causes them considerable distress
• Milgram suggested that there are two distinct modes of social consciousness
• the autonomous state is where we act according to our own conscience and we feel responsible for our actions
• In the autonomous state the vast majority of people behave decently towards others
• the agentic state is where we are no longer independent but act according to instructions from someone else
• When in the agentic state people justify their behaviour by saying that they acted that way because they were told to do so
• People move from the autonomous state into the agentic state when confronted with an authority figure. This is the agentic shift
• If a person obeys an order that goes against their conscience they are likely to experience moral strain
• binding factors - aspects of the situation that allow a person to minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour
• The legitimate authority explanation suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us
• Most societies are structured in a hierarchical way, meaning people in certain positions hold authority over the rest of the populace
• The authority a person has is legitimate in the sense that it is agreed by society
• Legitimacy of authority is influenced by:

  • uniform
  • location
  • titles
• There is research support for the agentic state by Blass and Schmitt (2001). A group of students watched tapes of Milgram’s study and were asked to identify who was responsible. Students blamed the experimenter for giving the orders
• The students in Blass and Schmitt's study also indicated that the responsibility was due to legitimate authority (the experimenter was top of the hierarchy) but also due to expert authority (because he was a scientist)
• however the agentic state doesn’t explain why some of the participants in Milgram’s study (35%) did not obey the authority figure
• the legitimacy of authority explanation is a useful account of cultural differences in obedience
• Kilham and Mann (1974) replicated Milgram’s study in Australia and found only 16% went all the way to the top voltage scale. But Mantell (1971) found that 85% of German participants obeyed to the top voltage. This shows in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals