Agentic state + legitimacy of authority

Question 1

What is the agentic state?

Answer 1

When a person sees themself as an agent for carrying out another person’s wishes

Question 2

What is the agentic shift?

Answer 2

The process of shifting the responsibility of one’s actions to someone else

Question 3

What is the autonomous state?

Answer 3

A state where individuals see themselves as responsible for their actions

Question 4

What state does the agentic shift take the individual out of?

Answer 4

The autonomous state

Question 5

In which study is there evidence of the agentic state?

Answer 5

In Milgram’s baseline study

Question 6

What did participants in Milgram’s study say in the interviews after?

Answer 6

‘I was just doing what I was told’

Question 7

Why do people adopt an agentic state?

Answer 7

To maintain a positive self-image

Question 8

What keeps an individual in the agentic state?

Answer 8

The fear of being classed as rude if they break their commitment

Question 9

What is legitimate authority?

Answer 9

A person who is perceived to be in a position of control in a social situation

Question 10

Who is the legitimate authority in Milgram’s study?

Answer 10

The experimenter

Question 11

Give 2 institutions where we are more likely to find legitimate authority.

Answer 11

Hospitals and the army

Question 12

What increases the legitimacy of authority?

Answer 12

Visible symbols of authority

Question 13

Give 2 examples of visible symbols of authority.

Answer 13

Uniform and location

Question 14

When do we learn to obey authority?

Answer 14

In our childhood

Question 15

How do Milgram’s results support legitimacy of authority?

Answer 15

Run down offices/casual clothing conditions = lower obedience

Question 16

What are the 4 explanations of obedience AO3 points?

Answer 16

1) Support for AS (Blass + Schmidt)
2) Agentic state or plain cruel?
3) Real life contradiction (Lifton - Auschwitz)
4) Real life consequences

Question 17

Which psychologists showed students a video of Milgram’s study?

Answer 17

Blass and Schmidt

Question 18

Who did the majority of Blass and Schmidt’s participants blame?

Answer 18

The experimenter in Milgram’s study

Question 19

What do Blass and Schmidt’s findings support?

Answer 19

The theory of agentic shift

Question 20

What have social scientists suggested that Milgram measured rather than obedience?

Answer 20

Signs of cruelty

Question 21

What did Milgram’s participants use the task as an excuse for?

Answer 21

To act on their sadistic impulses

Question 22

How does the SPE contradict the agentic shift?

Answer 22

Guards became aggressive despite no authority figure + full control of behaviour

Question 23

What does the SPE suggest about the cause of obedience?

Answer 23

That for some people they obey due to agentic shift, but others obey due to primal desire to inflict harm

Question 24

Who found real life contradictory evidence of the agentic shift?

Answer 24

Lifton

Question 25

Which group of individuals did Lifton study?

Answer 25

German Auschwitz doctors

Question 26

What can be said about the change in German Auschwitz doctors?

Answer 26

It was gradual and irreversible

Question 27

What were the German doctors like before the Holocaust?

Answer 27

Ordinary medical professionals who cared about their patients

Question 28

What were the German doctors like after the Holocaust?

Answer 28

Individuals capable fo carrying out vile + lethal experiments on innocent prisoners

Question 29

Why can’t the agentic shift explain German Auschwitz doctors?

Answer 29

Because the change was slow and gradual

Question 30

What can explain the change in behaviour of German Auschwitz doctors?

Answer 30

Acting evilly over a long period of time changed their beliefs

Question 31

Why can the agentic shift be socially sensitive?

Answer 31

Acts as an excuse for individuals to act immorally on behalf of authority