6. situational explanations Flashcards
the Agentic State
Milgram’s initial interest in obedience was sparked by the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 for war crimes - Eichmann had been in charge of the Nazi death camps and his defence was that he was only obeying orders.
This led Milgram to propose that
obedience to destructive authority occurs because a person does not take responsibility. Instead, they believe they are acting for someone else - that they are an ‘agent.
An ‘agent’ is someone who acts for or in place of another.
An agent is not an unfeeling puppet - they experience
but they feel poweless to
high anxiety (moral strain) when they realise that what they are doing is wrong
but feel powerless to disobey.
The opposite of being in an agentic state is being in an autonomous state.
A person in an autonomous state is free to
Autonomy means to be independent or free
behave according to their own principles and feels a sense of responsibility for their own actions.
The shift from autonomy to agency is called the agentic shift.
Milgram suggested that this occurs when
a person perceives someone else as an authority figure.
The authority figure has greater power because they have a higher position in a social hierarchy.
In most social groups, when one person is in charge others defer to the legitimate authority of this person and shift from autonomy to agency.
Milgram observed that many of his participants said they wanted to stop but seemed powerless to do so.
This is due to binding factors, which are
aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and thus reduce the ‘moral strain’ they are feeling.
Milgram proposed a number of strategies that the individual uses, such as shifting the responsibility to the victim or denying the damage they were doing to the victims.
AO3 - strength of AGENTIC STATE
research support - Milgram (questions from participants)
One strength is that Milgram’s own studies support the role of the agentic state in obedience.
Most of Milgram’s participants resisted giving the shocks at some point, and often asked the Experimenter questions about the procedure. One of these was ‘Who is responsible the Learner is harmed?’ When the Experimenter replied ‘I’m responsible, the participants often went through the procedure quickly with no further objections.
This shows that once participants perceived they were no longer responsible for their own behaviour, they acted more easily as the Experimenter’s agent, as Milgram suggested.
AO3 - limitaton of AGENTIC STATE
limited explanation - (Jacobson, nurses)
One limitation is that the agentic shift doesn’t explain many research findings about obedience.
For example, it does not explain the findings of Jacobson’s study. They found that 16 out of 18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient. The doctor was an obvious authority figure. But almost all the nurses remained autonomous, as did many of Milgram’s participants.
This suggests that, at best, the agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience.
LEGITIMACY OF AUTHORITY
Most societies are structured in a hierarchical way. This means that people in certain positions hold authority over the rest of us. e.g. parents, teachers, police officers, nightclub bouncers all have authority over us at times.
The authority they wield is legitimate in the sense that it is agreed by society most of us accept that authority figures have to be allowed to exercise social power over others because this allows society to function smoothly.
One of the consequences of this legitimacy of authority is that
some people are granted the power to punish others:
we agree that the police and courts have the power to punish wrongdoers.
So, we are willing to give up some of our independence and to hand control of our behaviour over to people we trust to exercise their authority appropriately.
We learn acceptance of legitimate authority from childhood, from
parents initially and then teachers and adults generally.
DESTRUCTIVE AUTHORITY
Problems arise when legitimate authority becomes destructive.
History has too often shown that charismatic and powerful leaders (such as Hitler, Stalin) can use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes, ordering people to behave in ways that are cruel and dangerous.
Destructive authority was obvious in Milgram’s study, when
the Experimenter used prods to order participants to behave in ways that went against their consciences.
AO3 - strength of LEGITEMACY OF AUTHORITY
can explain cultural differences - Mann (australian) , Mantell (german)
One strength of the legitimacy explanation is that it is a useful account of cultural differences in obedience.
Many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people are obedient to authority. For example, Mann found that only 16% of Australian women went all the way up to 450 volts in a Milgram-style study. However, Mantell found a very different figure for German participants - 85%.
This shows that, in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals. This reflects the ways that different societies are structured and how children are raised to perceive authority figures.
AO3 - limitaton of LEGITEMACY OF AUTHORITY
cannot explain all disobedience - Jacobson (nurses), Milgram
One limitation is that legitimacy cannot explain instances of disobedience in a hierarchy where the legitimacy of authority is clear and accepted.
This includes the nurses in Jacobson’s study that disobeyed the doctor’s orders to administer a fatal dose to a patient.
Most of them were disobedient despite working in a rigidly hierarchical authority structure. Also, a significant minority of Milgram’s participants disobeyed despite recognising the Experimenter’s scientific authority.
This suggests that some people may just be more or less obedient than others. It is possible that innate tendencies to obey/ disobey have a greater influence on behaviour than legitimacy of authority figures.
