explanations of obedience: situational explanations

Question 1

agentic state

Answer 1

• mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure
• autonomous state behave according to their own principles and feel a sense of responsibility for their actions
  opposite of agentic state

Question 2

agentic shift

Answer 2

• shift from autonomous to agentic
• happens when they perceive the person as a figure of authority ( has greater position in social hierarchy)

Question 3

why individuals stay in agentic state?

Answer 3

due to binding factors
aspects that allows the person to ignore / minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour
reduces moral strain they feel

Question 4

legitimacy of authority

Answer 4

suggests we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us
authority is justified by individuals position of power within a society hierarchy

Question 5

consequence of legitimacy of authority

Answer 5

some have the power to punish others

Question 6

destructive authority

Answer 6

leaders have used their legitimacy of authority for destructive purposes (Hitler)

Question 7

AO3: research support (agentic )

Answer 7

• Milgram’s study supports the role of agentic state
• his ppts resisted giving shocks at some point ( asked who’s responsible if the learner is harmed)
• went through with the shocks when the experimenter said they were responsible
• this supports agentic state as it shows once ppts aren’t responsible they act more easily

Question 8

AO3: limited explanation (agentic)

Answer 8

• agentic shift doesn’t explain many obedience studies
• doesn’t explain findings of Rank & Jacobson (1977)
  
  • found that 16/18 nurses disobeyed orders to administer a drug to a patient
• nurses remained autonomous like some of milgram’s ppts
• agentic shifts only account for some situations of obedience

Question 9

AO3: cultural differences (legitimacy)

Answer 9

• useful account of cultural differences in obedience
• studies show countries differ in obedience levels
• Kilman & Man: only 16% of Australian women went up to 450v
• Mantell: german ppts had an obedience rate of 85%
  shows in some cultures authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate
• supports validity

Question 10

AO3: ‘obedience alibi’

Answer 10

• Mandel (1998): described the incident in WW1 with a german reserve police batalian 101
• they shot people in a town in Poland without any orders to do so and were told they could be assigned to different duties (behaved autonomously)

Question 11

AO3: real-life crimes of obedience

Answer 11

• Rank & Jacobson: nurses prepared to disobey a legitimate authority
• Kelman & Hamilton: argue that real-world crime of obedience ( My Lai massacre) can be understood in terms of power hierarchy of the US Army
• commanding officers operate within a more legitimate hierarchy (greater power to punish)