Agentic State and Legitimacy of Authority Flashcards
Describe the agentic state
- Milgram believed that in cases of obedience to destructive authority, individuals believe they’re acting on behalf of someone else
- They act as an agent and complete the order under the agentic state, a mental state where they feel no sense of responsibility for their behaviour
What might someone feel in the agentic state after obedience?
Individuals may feel some moral strain or anxiety when they realise their wrongful behaviour but are powerless to disobey as they’re in a lower position in the social hierarchy to their authority figure
Describe the autonomous state
Most of the time, individuals are in the autonomous state, a state of independence in which they have free will to choose how to behave and take full responsibility to their actions.
What is the agentic shift?
In the presence of a perceived authority figure, individuals make a change from being autonomous to taking on the agentic state, called the agentic shift
Why do people adopt an agentic state?
- To maintain a positive self-image.
- In the case of Milgram, participants are temped to obey and shock the learner but they may assess the consequences of this action for their self-image.
- But once they move to the agentic state, this concern isn’t relevant as the action is no longer their responsibility.
What are binding factors?
- There are aspects of the situation which bind us to the task and allow us to block out the moral strain we’re experiencing, called binding factors
- e.g. denying responsibility and making out it’s the victim fault helps us to block the moral strain
What is legitimate authority and link it to Milgram’s study
- Legitimate authority, a person perceived to be in a position of authority, allows for someone to shift to the agentic state.
- In Milgram’s study, the participants entered the lab with an expectation that someone will be in charge. The experimenter fills this role and isn’t challenged
Describe how we determine legitimate authority
- Society is structured in a hierarchy with those at the top holding positions of authority. As society dictates their position, their authority is legitimate.
- We learn to accept these legitimate authority figures and are taught that they have power to punish us to keep society in order. So we’re willing to give up some of our independence and trust people in these positions to use their authority appropriately
Describe how legitimate authority are limited
- Powerful figures may exploit their authority in a destructive way, so if their demands are potentially harmful, for it to be perceived as legitimate they must occur in an institutional structure (e.g. university, military)
- The run-down building variation of Milgram’s study, showed that this doesn’t have to be in a reputable institution, as the study obtained relatively high levels of obedience
Describe an application of the agentic shift in real life
- In the village of My Lai during the Vietnam war, American soldiers found a village of non-combatants while expecting the Vietcong. William Calley ordered his men to murder the unarmed villagers.
- The men carried out the command and over 500 villagers were killed. At his military trial, Calley didn’t accept his guilt, saying that he too had been following orders from his superior officer.
Give evaluation for legitimacy of authority (research support)
- Blass and Schmitt showed a video of Milgram’s study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the learner.
- Students blamed the experimenter rather the participant, arguing he had responsibility due to his authority
- This is a strength of the legitimate authority explanation as it supports positions in the hierarchy can influence someone in a lower position.
Give evaluation for the legitimacy of authority (cultural differences in obedience)
- e.g. Kilburn and Mann replicated Milgram’s study in Australia and found only 16% of participants went to the top voltage. While Mantell found that German participants delivered the maximum shock
- This shows that in other cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate so demand obedience from individuals. This reflects that the way different societies are structured and how children are raised to perceive authority figures affects obedience.
Give evaluation for agentic state (limited)
- The agentic shift doesn’t explain many of the research findings.
- e.g. it didn’t explain why some of the participants didn’t obey in Milgram’s study or the findings in Holfing’s study. The agentic shift predicts that, as nurses handed over responsibility to the doctor, they should’ve shown high levels of anxiety and moral strain as they understood their role in the destructive process but this wasn’t the case.
- This is a weakness of the agentic state explanation as it suggests that the agentic shift only accounts for some situations. As if the social hierarchy was involved, then all humans would obey as if they were social animals
Give evaluation for legitimacy of authority (power of legitimate authority)
- Tarnow provides support for the power of legitimate authority
- He studied data from a US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) review of serious aircraft accidents, where flight crew actions were a factor in the crash. He found excessive dependence on the captain’s authority had tragic consequence, providing a real-life demonstration of the power of legitimate authority to enforce obedience
- However flight crew are now told to not blindly follow orders. Therefore there has been practical applications due to the legitimacy of authority explanation.
