Explanations For Obedience

Question 1

Outline the Agentic State

Answer 1

This is where people may move from being in a state where they take personal responsibility for their actions - autonomous state - to a state where they believe that they are acting on behalf of an authority figure - agentic state. This is known as the agentic
shift. When an individual is in the agentic state, they lose sense of personal responsibility and no longer feel guilty for their actions as they see themselves as carrying out the orders of a more knowledgeable authority figure. If a person a in the agentic state, they are more likely to obey.

Question 2

Outline Legitimacy of Authority

Answer 2

Obedient individuals accept the power and status of authority figures and see then as being in charge such as teachers and police officers. The authority that they have is legitimate in the sense that it is agreed by society. We accept people’s credentials and beliere they know what they are doing. It is ingrained in us to obey these people even if the order is unethical. Two factors that affect Legitmacy of authority are uniform and location. This is shown in Milgram’s research where he changed the experiment to a run-down office and the researcher in a grey lab coat was replaced by someone in everyday clothes, suggesting that obedience is reduced as the experimenter has less legitimate authority.

Question 3

Discuss Explanations of Obedience to Authority (3 x AO3)

Answer 3

1. Research to support the explanations for obedience to authority was conducted by Hofling.
   He conducted a study using nurses on a hospital ward who were ordered by an unknown doctor to give a dangerous dose of a drug to patients via a telephone. 21 out of the 22 nurses agreed to give the medication even though they knew not to take orders over the phone. Therefore, supports legitimacy of authority as an explanation for obedience because the doctor had more authority than the nurses. Moreover, it could also support the agentic state as the nurses may have felt that the doctors were ultimately responsible as the authority figure, and this is why they obeyed.
2. However, there is also research to contradict the agentic state as an explanation for obedience to authority. Mandel described one incident involving German Nazi Soldiers where men obeyed the orders to shoot civilians in a small town in Poland. However, they were told before hand that they could be given other duties instead. This contradicts the agentic state as an explanation of obedience as the soldiers chose to shoot the civilians over other duties, meaning that they would not be able to place the blame on an authority figure. Therefore they was acting in the autonomous state.
3. An alternative explanation for obedience is dispositional factors e.g. The Authoritarian Personality. This would argue that obedience is due to internal characteristics of the person e.g. their personality, for example having extreme respect for authority due to their upbringing. Therefore, this suggests that obedience may not just be due to legitimacy of authority and the agentic state. This weakens the explanations of obedience, as they are not the sole explanations.