Obedience: Social-psychological factors

• Obedience: Social-psychological factors

  Agentic state

  Milgram proposed that obedience to destructive authority occurs because a person does not take responsibility, they believe they are acting for someone else (an 'agent')
• Obedience: Social-psychological factors

  Agentic state 2

  Autonomous state- opposite to agentic state. Free to behave according to their own principles and therefore feels a sense of responsibility for their actions.

  Shift from autonomous state to agentic state = agentic shift. Milgram (1974) suggested this occurs when a person perceives someone else as an authority figure. This person has greater power because of their position in a social hierarchy.
• Obedience: Social-psychological factors

  Agentic state 3

  Binding factors- aspects of situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and thus reduce the 'moral strain' they are feeling. Number of strategies used: shift responsibility to victim or deny damage they were doing to victims.
• Obedience: Social-psychological factors

  Agentic state- evaluation

  Supported by research. Blass and Schmitt (2001) showed film of Milgram's study to students and asked them to identify who was responsible for harm of learner. Blamed experimenter and indicated that responsibility was due to legitimate authority (top of hierarchy) and expert authority (scientist).
• Obedience: Social-psychological factors

  Agentic state- evaluation 2

  Limited explanation. Agentic shift doesn't explain many research findings e.g., why some ppts did not obey. So can only account for some situations of obedience.
• Obedience: Social-psychological factors

  Legitimacy of authority

  An explanation for obedience which suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. This authority is justified by the individual's position of power within a social hierarchy.
• Obedience: Social-psychological factors

  Legitimacy of authority 2

  Destructive authority- History has too often shown that charismatic and powerful leaders (e.g., Hitler, Stalin, etc.) can use their legitimate powers to for destructive purposes, ordering people to behave in callous, cruel, stupid and dangerous ways. Shown in Milgram's study- experimenter used prods to order ppts to behave in ways that went against their consciences.
• Obedience: Social-psychological factors

  Legitimacy of authority- evaluation

  Useful account of cultural differences in obedience. Kilham and Mann (1974) replicated Milgram's procedure in Australia and found that only 16% of ppts went to the top of the voltage scale. However, Mantell (1971) found it was 85% for German ppts. Shows that in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience. Cross-cultural research increases validity of explanation.