Explanations for Obedience

Question 1

Describe the agentic state theory of obedience

Answer 1

When individuals act as an ‘agent’ (on behalf of) for someone else, completing orders in a state with no responsibility or guilt for their behaviours - may feel moral strain but cannot disobey when in a lower position in the social hierarchy than the authority figure

Question 2

Define autonomous state

Answer 2

A state of independence where individuals have free will over their actions and take responsibility for their behaviour

Question 3

What is agentic shift?

Answer 3

When an individual changes from autonomous state to agentic state when in the presence of a perceived authority figure

Question 4

Why do individuals stay in agentic state?

Answer 4

Due to binding factors; aspects which allow us to block out the moral strain, can be denying responsibility and faulting the victim

Question 5

Describe the legitimacy of authority explanation for obedience

Answer 5

• states society to be structured in a hierarchy w those at the top holding positions of power
• as society dictates their position, their authority is seen as legitimate e.g. police officers, teachers, security guards
• due to accepting these authority figures from a young age, we give up some independence to allow these ppl to have authority over us

Question 6

What are the three factors of legitimacy?

Answer 6

Legitimacy of the system = the extent the ´body’ is a legitimate source of authority e.g. government, army, etc.
Legitimacy of authority within system = power individuals have to give orders bc of their position within a system
Legitimacy of orders given = extent an order is perceived to be a legitimate area for the authority figure

Question 7

Give strengths for the agentic state explanations of obedience

Answer 7

• Research support —> Blass and Schmitt (2001) found that students watching a video of Milgrams study blamed the experimenter and not the teacher ; shows agent is not seen as responsible but rather the authority figure
  -Cultural differences —> many studies show that countries differ in obedience - in German recreation of Milgrams experiment, Mantell found 85% went to max shock ; shows authority figures are seen as legitimate due to cultural and societal upbringing

Question 8

Give a limitation for agentic state explanations for obedience

Answer 8

Limited explanation —> agentic shift does not explain why some participants did not obey ; only explains a small part of the experiment

Question 9

What is the authoritarian personality explanation of obedience?

Answer 9

States certain people have an authoritarian personality due to strict/rigid parenting in childhood, which makes them more likely to obey to authority

Question 10

How was the authoritarian personality investigated?

Answer 10

Adorno et al (1950) created the fascism scale (F-scale), a questionairre, and used on 2000 middle class white Americans

Question 11

What characteristics make up the authoritarian personality?

Answer 11

• Highly obedient and submissive to people of perceived high status
• Dismissive of those deemed to be inferior
• Black and white views with fixed stereotypes
• Believe in strong powerful leaders to enforce traditional valued

Question 12

Give a strength of Adorno’s authoritarian personality

Answer 12

+ Research support - Milgram and Elms (1966) interviewed a sample of ppts who scored highly on F-Scale; results indicated obedience was due to fascist beliefs
however, simply correlation

Question 13

Give limitations of Adornos aurhoritarian personality?

Answer 13

— Self reported data —> relies on questionnaires which may be successible to social desirability bias ; may not accurately measure authoritarian personality
— Acquiescence bias = tendency to agree, since all questions were worded in same direction may skew results more authoritarian
— Researcher bias —> Adorno interviewed people after finding out their F-scale, may have lead to leading questions or only recording info that confirmed their hypothesis