Agentic state:

• STRENGTH:

  • Milgram's own studies support the role of the agentic state in obedience
  • Most of Milgram's pp resisted giving the shocks at some point and often asked the Experimenter questions about the procedure
  • One of these was 'Who is responsible if Mr Wallace (the Learner) is harmed?'
  • When the Experimenter replied I'm responsible, the pp often went through the procedure quickly with no further objections

  This shows that once pp perceived they were no longer responsible for their own behaviour, they acted more easily as the Experimenter's agent, as Milgram suggested.
• LIMITATION:

  • doesn't explain many research findings about obedience
  • For example, it does not explain the findings of Rank and Jacobson's 1977 study
  • They found that 16 out of 18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient
  • The doctor was an obvious authority figure
  • But almost all the nurses remained autonomous, as did many of Milgram's participants.

  This suggests that, at best, the agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience.