agentic state and legitimacy of authority

Question 1

strength: there is research support

Answer 1

E:Blass and Schmidt showed a film of milligrams experiment and interviewed them. the students mostly stated that they held the experimenter responsible and not the participant as he had authority as a scientist.
E:these findings support both milligrams explanations.the first one being that the participants identified the experimenter authority deriving from his role as a scientist is in line with Milgrams view that people derive statuses as legitimate due to shared cultural assumptions..in this case the assumption that scientists have authority in science experiments
. secondly, the fact that the participants held the experimenter instead of the participant responsible suggests that they had recognised the agentic shift occur.
L:therefore thus study provides support for Milgrams explanation of obedience in terms of legitimacy pf authors and the agentic state.

Question 2

limitation:explanations offers a deterministic account of obedience

Answer 2

E:Milgrams explanation for destructive obedience presents a deterministic account as it implies that a person will automatically enter the agentic state and obey an order if their cultural background leads them to view that the order is given by a legitimate authority.
E:this is problematic because it undermines the belief that humans have free will and have the ability to chase whether to obey or not. [furthermore many individuals disobey destructive orders (this happened in milligrams study and during the holocaust). lastly this deterministic account of obedience is problematic because it seems to excuse immoral behaviour. for example it could be said that people who obey destructive orders are unawake to disobey and cannot be help accountable for their actions (like in the holocaust)
L:therefore milligrams explanation for obedience and agentic state and leg of author can be criticised for being overly deterministic.