Agency theory

• Agency Theory


  A theory that explains blind obedience to authority figures
• Agency Theory


  • Developed by Stanley Milgram as a response to Nazi war crimes
  • Rejects dispositional and realist explanations for these crimes
  • Suggests people have much less free will than they suppose when it comes to decision-making
  • Illustrates features of the Social Approach, showing how decisions are expressions of social situation
• Autonomous State


  Mental state where we perceive ourselves to be responsible for our own behaviour and feel guilt for what we do
• Agentic State


  Mental state where we perceive ourselves to be the agent of someone else's will, so the authority figure is responsible and we feel no guilt
• Authority Figure


  People who carry symbols of authority (like a uniform) or possess status (like rank)
• Agentic Shift


  The shift from the Autonomous State to the Agentic State when an order is given by an authority figure
• Moral Strain


  The contradictory urges to obey the authority figure (and society's expectations) and to obey our consciences (and keep our own self-image as "a good person")
• Defence Mechanisms


  • Used by participants to lessen moral strain, including denial, avoidance, degree of involvement, and helping the learner
• Going into the Agentic State

  Removes moral strain, because we regard the authority figure as now being responsible for our actions
• Evolutionary Explanation


  Obedience is a survival trait that enabled tribes of early humans to flourish
• Conditioning Explanation


  From an early age, we are conditioned to respect authority figures through reward and punishment
• Milgram's 1961 study into obedience was the basis for Agency Theory
• Milgram published 19 "variations" on the original obedience study in 1974
• Burger (2009) found high (70%) levels of obedience when replicating Variation #5
• Variation #10 used a run-down office rather than Yale University and obedience dropped to 47.5%
• Personality Factors


  • Authoritarian personality type that admires rules and is inclined to obey
  • Need to be in control of one's own behaviour
• Milgram developed Agency Theory to answer why decent German citizens obeyed orders from Nazi rulers to commit genocide
• Cross-cultural variations of the Milgram study found similar results in liberal Holland and non-Western Jordan