Agentic State & Legitimate Authority Flashcards
What is the agentic state?
A state in which an individual behaves as the agent of another person, allowing them to deny responsibility for their actions and distance themselves from the consequences of those actions.
What are the two states a person can be in suggested by Milgram?
- Autonomous state.
- Agentic state.
What is an autonomous state?
When an individual has control and acts according to their wishes.
What is an agentic state?
When an individual obeys an authority figure and gives up some free will.
What is the agentic shift?
When an individual shifts from an autonomous state to an agentic state.
What are the three factors that cause individuals to stay in the agentic state according to Milgram?
- Insistence of authority.
- Pressure of location.
- Unwillingness to disrupt.
What is research evidence for the agentic state?
- During the de-brief in Milgram’s (1963) participants admitted to feeling under ‘moral strain’ but continued to obey- a feeling consistent with an agentic state.
- Milgram also found when the researcher was not in the same room as the teacher and gave instructions via telephone, obedience feel from 62.5% to 20.4%- a behaviour consistent with an autonomous state.
What is legitimacy of authority?
Individuals who are obedient accept the power and status of legitimate authority figures and are more likely to carry out instructions given by such figures.
How is legitimacy of authority possible?
Individuals learn to recognise the authority of other individuals such as parents, teachers and police officers through early socialisation.
How does being higher up within the social hierachy affect obedience?
The higher up the social hierachy an individual is the more percieved authority that individual has and the more likely they are to be obeyed.
