The Agentic State - Obedience

• The agentic state/agency theory devised by Milgram
• The agentic state means you 'mentally' become an agent of the state
• An agent is someone who acts in place of another
• In the agentic state, you are not responsible for what you do, after all you just did what you are told
• The agentic state theory

  • the person starts in an autonomous state
  • autonomy means to act freely, on your own principles, you feel responsible for your own actions
  • then you get an order from an authority figure
  • this then causes a shift -> authority has great power because of their position in the social hierarchy, so the person getting the order feels they have to obey
  • the shift from autonomy to agency is called the agentic shift
• Accountability

  • they are now in the agentic state
  • when people want to blame them for what they did, they don't have to take responsibility as they didn't have a choice in the matter and was just following orders
• Why does the individual remain in the agentic state, if it seems like they wanted to leave?

  • binding factors - aspects of the situation that reduce the moral strain that they are feeling
• What about the Milgram situation made participants feel less responsible for their behaviour?

  • blaming the victim (volunteered)
  • denying the damage that they are doing
  • experimenter said he was in charge