agentic state and legitimacy of authority

Question 1

agentic state

Answer 1

process of shifting responsibility for actions onto figure of authority - agentic state - where person sees themself as agent for carrying out someone else’s wishes

Question 2

explanation for why people adopt agentic state

Answer 2

feel the need to maintain positive self image, actions performed under agentic state from participant’s perspective are guilt free

Question 3

legitimacy of authority

Answer 3

legitimate authority needed for person to shift into agentic state.
milgram - power of legitimate authority stems from personal characteristics and individual’s perceived position in social situation. if authority figure’s commands are of potential harm then for them to be perceived as legitimate they must occur within some sort of institutional structure

Question 4

evaluation - fails to explain gradual and irreversible transition

Answer 4

only explains shift back and forth between autonomous state and agentic state

lifton - doctors working at auschwitz changed gradually and irreversibly from ordinary medical professionals concerned with welfare of patients into doctors capable of carrying out vile and potentially lethal experiments on helpless prisoners

staub - rather than agentic shift being responsible for transition found in many holocaust perpetrators, it is experience of carrying out acts of evil over long time that changes way individuals think and behave

Question 5

evaluation - agentic state as loss of personal control

Answer 5

fennis and aarts claim agentic shift is more likely in situations where individual experiences reduction in sense of personal control - under such circumstances people may show increased acceptance of external sources to compensate for this.
F&A demonstrated that reduction in personal control resulted in greater obedience to authority and greater compliance with behavioural requests.

concluded that process of agentic shift may also extend to other forms of social influence where individual feels less in control of their actions

Question 6

evaluation - not agentic state, but fundamental desire to inflict harm on others

Answer 6

common belief among social scientists that milgram detected signs of cruelty among PPs who used the situation to express sadistic impulses

stanford prison experiment - within just few days, guards inflicted rapidly increasing cruelty on increasingly submissive prisoners despite there being no obvious authority figure instructing them to do so - suggests agentic shift doesnt apply for all - for some ‘obedient behaviour’ may be due to fundamental desire to inflict harm on others