Situational Explanations

• Agentic State 


  a mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure
• Legitimacy of Authority 


  an explanation for obedience which suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have more authority than us
• Strengths of Legitimacy of authority

  • explains cultural differences - Mann - Australians
• Limitations of legitimacy of authority

  • rank and jacobson - nurses disobeyed authority figure
• Autonomous State

  • opposite of the agentic state
  • 'autonomy' means to be independent and free
  • behave according to their own principles
• Agentic Shift 


  shift from autonomy to agency
• Binding factors


  aspects of a situation that allows people to ignore the damaging affect of their behaviour - reduces the moral strain

  e.g. shift responsibility to person of authority