agentic state and legitimacy of authority

Question 1

agentic shift

Answer 1

• shifting responsibility for ones actions onto someone else
• involves moving from an autonomous state (where a person sees themselves as responsible for their own actions) and into an agentic state (a person sees themself as an agent for carrying out another persons wishes.

Question 2

what happened at the end of Milgrams study

Answer 2

• when participants were asked why they continued to give out electric shocks the typical reply was “I wouldn’t have done it by myself. I was just doing what I was told”
• the consequence of this is that an individual feels responsible to the authority directing them but feels no responsibility for the actions that the authority opposes.

Question 3

one explanation for why people adopt an agentic state is the need to maintain a possible self image. Explain this

Answer 3

• tempted to do as requested and shock the learner, the participant may asses the consequences of this action for their self image and refrain.
• however, once the participant has moved into the agentic state this concern is no longer relevant.
• because the action is no longer their responsibility, it no longer reflects their self image.
• actions performed under the agentic state are from the participants perspective guilt free.

Question 4

once a person has entered the agentic state, what keeps them in?

Answer 4

in order to break off the experiment, the participant must breach the commitment that he made to the experimenter. Thus, the subjects fears if he breaks off, he will appear arrogant and rude.

Question 5

what is the first condition needed for a person to shift to the agentic state

Answer 5

the perception of a legitimate authority

Question 6

define legitimate authority

Answer 6

someone who is perceived to be in a position of social control within a situation

Question 7

explain why legitimate authority requires an institution

Answer 7

• if an authority figure’s commands are of potential harm, then for them to be perceived as real they must occur within some sort of institutional structure (e.g. university)

Question 8

describe a real life application of age it shift

Answer 8

• found in the actions of American soldiers in 1968, in My Lai during the Vietnam war.
• soldiers found a village of non-combatants when they had been expected north Vietnamese fighters.
• the platoon commander ordered his men to murdered the unarmed Vietnamese villagers.
• the men carried out the order and over 500 villagers were killed

Question 9

explain the limitation of the agentic state explanation and real life obedience

Answer 9

• Milgram claimed that people move back and fourth between the autonomous state and the agentic shift
• this idea of shifting however fails to explain the gradual transition that Lifton found in his study of German doctors that worked in Auschwitz
• these doctors had changed from ordinary medical professionals into people who we capable of carrying out lethal experiments on the helpless prisoners.
• Staub suggests that rather than agentic shift being responsible for the tradition found in many holocaust perpetrators, it is the experience of carrying out acts of evil over a long time that changes the way individuals think and behave

Question 10

explain the strength that the legitimate authority explanation can be seen in real life obedience

Answer 10

• legitimacy can serve as the basis for justifying the harm of others
• in an individual allows another person to make judgements for them about what is appropriate conduct, they no longer feel that their own moral values are relevant
• this means that when they are directed by a legitimate authority figure to engage in immoral actions people are willing to do so.
• this sort of extreme obedience is used in military training
• holocaust

Question 11

explain the streets that Tarnow provides support for legitimate authority

Answer 11

• reviewed all serious aircraft accidents in the US between 1978 and 1990
• a flight voice recorder was available
• he found significant dependence on the captain’s authority and expertise.
• a second officer claimed that although he noticed the captain taking a particularly risky approach, he said nothing as he assumed the captain must know what he is doing,

Question 12

explain the limitation that is it agentic state or simply just cruel behaviour

Answer 12

• although Milgram believed that agentic state best explained his finishing second, he did consider other possibilities
• one common belief is that he had de texted signs of cruelty among his participants who had used the experiment to express their sadistic impulses.
• this belief was brought about by the Stanford prison experiment where the guards inflicted cruelty on the prisoners despite the fact that there was no obvious authority figure telling them to do so