Obedience:situational explanations

• what is agentic shift?

  process in which a person shifts the responsbility of their actions onto someone else.
• What is autonomous state?

  responsibile for own behaviour and actions.
• What is the agentic state?

  state of mind in which a person will allow other people to direct their behaviours and pass responsibility for the consequence of their behaviour.
• How does Milgrams research support the agentic state?(+)

  Participants commonly asked the experimenter who is responsible if the learner is harmed?, in which the experimenter stated they were.Participants then went through the procedure quickly with no objections.
• How is the agentic shift a limited explanation?(-)

  Doesn't explain amny research findings about obedience.Eg, it does not explain the findings of Rank and Jacobsens study, in which 16/18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient.
• How does the legitimacy explanation explain cultural differences?(+)

  Kilham and Mann found that only 16% of female austrailan pps went all the way to 450V in a Milgram-style study, while Mantell found very different for german pps-85%.
• Explain a limitation of legitimacy of authority.

  Cannot explain instances of disobedience where legitimacy of authority is presented as clear and accepted.eg nurses in Rank and Jacobsons study.Some people may just be naturally more obedient than others.