O- situational explanations

• Obedience - situational explanations-

  Agentic state-

  • Based on a trial on Adolf Eichmann (1961) and his war crimes, since he was in charge of the death camps, he defended himself saying he was obeying orders.
  • Agenetic state is when someone takes orders from someone as an ‘agent’ and acts like a puppet since they ‘don not take responsibility’ as they feel powerless to disobey due to extreme anxiety/moral strain.
  • Autonomous state is the opposite since the person is free to behave how they want to and feels responsibility for their actions.
• Obedience - situational explanations -

  Agentic state-

  • There can be a shift from the autonomous to agentic state called the ‘agentic shift’ (Milgram 1974) when someone shifts to obey a power figure due to their higher position in the social hierarchy.
  • Binding factors are aspects of the situation that allow someone to ignore the damage they are creating and therefore reducing the ‘moral strain’.
  • Individual use strategies like shifting the blame, by saying the volunteer was foolish, denying the damage they’re causing on the victim.
• Obedience - situational explanations -

  Agentic state

  S- During Milgram experiment agent state is shown when the participants try to resist by obey due to the pressure from the authoritive figure.

  W- Rank and Jacobson (1977) found that 16/18 nurses disobeyed a doctor's orders to give excess drugs to patients, the doctor being the authoritative figure, but the nurses remained autonomous – agentic shift only occurs in certain situations.
• Obedience - situational explanations -

  Legitimacy of authority-

  • Some people hold authority due to our social way of life (police, teachers) which let us give up some of our independence and obey to them, learnt through our childhood.
  • Destructive authority is when the legitimate authority becomes destructive (like Hitler) which is used in Milgram experiment when the Experimenter used prods to order the participant to behave against their conscience.
• Obedeince - situational explanations -

  Legitimacy of authority-

  S- Kilham and Mann (1974) found that 16% of Australian women went to 450v, while Mantell (1971) found 85% with German participants – showing that different cultures obey differently to authority figures due to the way they were raised.

  W- Can’t explain Rank and Jacobson (1977) since most nurses disobeyed to the legitimate authoritative figure – suggesting some people may be more obedient than others and that it also depends on the situation (Hippocratic oath).
• Obedeince - situational explanations -

  Legitimacy of authority-

  CPS- Kelman and Hamilton (1989) argues that the Mai Lee Massacre was due to the soldiers obeying to the commands since they have a clearer legitimacy than a doctors power to punish.

  CPW- Rank and Jacobson found that nurses were prepared to disobey the doctor.