What are the 2 situational explanations of obedience?
Agentic state
Legitimacy of authority
What is the agentic state?
The belief that that we are acting for someone else. This enables obedience to destructive authority. They believe they are unable to disobey but they do experience moral strain
What is the autonomous state?
When you feel a sense of responsibility for your actions, therefore act independently. However, they can also experience agentic shift when a person of authority appears and they shift to agency.
What are binding factors?
aspects that allow people to ignore or minimise the damage of their behaviour i.e shifting the blame on the victim ‘he was foolish to volunteer’
What is legitimacy of authority?
An explanation that suggests we are more likely to obey people to have authority over us, and so justified by the social hierarchy i.e we give police officers authority and we trust they’ll exercise it appropriately. In some cases it can become destructive (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot)
