04. Agency Theory Flashcards
Summarise agency theory.
-People have evolved to obey authority as it gives them a survival advantage when in organised groups.
-People are born with a propensity to obey, but this is only realised when they are socialised into following direct orders of authority figures.
-People operate in two ways (in an autonomous or an agentic state).
What is the autonomous state?
You are aware of consequences of actions. You are in control of your actions, feel responsible and ignore the orders of others. This gives you the power to make your own decisions.
What is an example of an individual in the autonomous state?
Gretchen Brandt.
She was a participant in one of Milgram’s later experiments. She refused to complete the experiment, when she was asked why she responded “I had been in Germany during the holocaust and have seen enough suffering already.”
Define moral strain.
If someone is asked to do something they wouldn’t normally do, they may feel this distress of moral strain.
-They may believe it is immoral or unjust.
-Results in feelings of discomfort, anxiety and distress.
-They are thinking about dissent however this goes against what they have been socialised to do.
Define agentic state.
Person sees themselves as an agent. They carry out orders but do not feel personally responsible. In this state you are giving up your own free will to the authority figure and doing as you are told.
-Displaces responsibility onto authority figure.
-Moral strain is reduced as the person would no longer feel responsible for their actions.
-For example, Milgram’s participants said, “I was only doing as I was told” showing ppts gave up their responsibility and chose to obey the authority figure.
What is the change from autonomous state to agentic state called?
Agentic shift.
How does the ability to make the agentic shift have survival value?
Evolutionary psychologists argue that common behaviour today reflect the selection pressures that existed in our environment of evolutionary adaptation.
Being an agent of society helps to avoid conflict and enables smooth running of a society; Milgram argues obedience has survival value.
Those humans who know their place in the social hierarchy and stuck to the rules were more likely to be accepted and survived, those who rebelled may have been rejected and found survival more difficult, thus not passing the genes to the next generation; therefore over time creatures whose survival relies on being part of a group become increasingly more obedient with each generation.
Describe the socialisation process.
The theory believes we are socialised into an agentic state from a young age. From an early age obedience becomes more likely as we are awarded for obedience and punished for going against instructions.
Children learn to act as agents, following social rules.
What are the steps of agency theory?
- Autonomous state- in control of own actions, responsible for what they do.
- Authority figure gives out an order that goes against moral judgement.
- Moral strain is experienced.
- Individual shifts from autonomous to being an agent (agentic shift).
- Individual is in the agentic state. Moral strain is reduced, responsibility is displaced as authority figure is now responsible for their actions.
How can moral strain be reduced? (Defence mechanisms)
Denial: Ppts minimised pain they were causing to the learner, convincing themselves that shocks weren’t dangerous. Milgram argued many people in Nazi Germany did this, refusing to believe what was going on in camps.
2. Avoidance: Participants didn’t look at experimenter or look up from shock generator.
3. Some helped the learner by stressing the correct answer on the memory test.
Describe the supporting research of Hofling (1966).
In a real hospital nurses were asked to administer a call from an unknown doctor asking them to administer a drug that was not on their ward list. Nurses were trained to not accept an order to administer a drug not on their lost, nor over the phone from an unknown doctor.
21 out of 22 followed the doctor’s orders, 95% obeyed.
Some of the nurses justified their behaviour due to the hierarchy of authority at the hospital.
Example of agentic state- nurses carried out orders of an authority figure with out feeling responsible.
Apply GRAVE to Hofling (1966).
Higher external validity as can occur in the real world.
High levels of ecological validity as conducted in a real life environment.
Cannot generalise it- all nurses are from the same hospital.
Describe the challenging study against agency theory of Jacobson and Rank (1977).
They found that 16/18 (89%) of nurses failed to obey orders from a doctor who asked them to administer an overdose of the drug valium. Hence despite doctors being an obvious source of authority, the vast majority of the sample remained autonomous. This qualitative data demonstrated that nurses did consider themselves responsible for their actions. Agentic shift is not inevitable.
In Milgram’s study how could moral strain be seen?
Participants dug their nails into their hands and sweated. As they were stressed about obeying a destructive order that went against their moral compass.
How can agency theory be applied to real life examples?
Has useful application as can help avoid blind obedience when there is a legitimate authority figure, Eg, Tarnow 2000 used Milgram’s findings to improve pilot training to encourage first officers to challenge the authority of the pilot when they are in error.
