obedience: agency theory Flashcards
Who came up with the idea of agency theory?
Milgram
What did Milgram want to investigate?
He wanted to investigate obedience to help explain the atrocities committed by the Germans during WW2. Milgram did not believe that the Nazi soldiers had a character flaw which aided them to be obedience. He uses ‘normal’ healthy ppts to investigate whether they would obey an authority figure and administer electric shocks to an innocent confederate. He concluded from his research that we are all capable of comp,ting to the demands of someone in authority, even if it means causing harm. Therefore, we are all capable of extreme obedience which must serve some evolutionary or societal function.
Hierarchy and agency theory
Human society is hierarchical in nature, there are many people at the bottom and few people at the top within society. This evolved for survival, people that didn’t adopt this formation died out. It must have a stabilising function - to create social order and harmony within the group. Obedience within this social organisation is a necessary feature as without it there would be a presence of chaos and societal breakdown.
Evolution theory and agency theory
This suggests that avoiding aggression is a good survival strategy. It is the idea of natural selection, any tendency that aids survival would lead to the gene or gene combination for that tendency being passed on.
Socialisation and agency theory
People are innately prepared to be obedient. Exposure to authority figures within family and education system, nurture this through the process of socialisation, the learning of rules and norms of society through socialising agents, such as teachers and parents.
Socialisation and agency theory
People are innately prepared to be obedient. Exposure to authority figures within family and education system, nurture this through the process of socialisation, the learning of rules and norms of society through socialising agents, such as teachers and parents.
What is meant by autonomous state?
Individuals see themselves as having power
They see their actions as being voluntary
They have free will to make their own decisions
It could be that an individual is given an instruction from an authority figure when they are in the autonomous state and move into the agentic state
What is meant by agentic state?
Individuals act as agents for others, usually in authority
Their own consciences are not in control
Lose free will to make own decisions
What is meant by moral strain?
When a person is in a state of discomfort because of doing something that is against their morality. This can be characterised as sweating, shaking or anxiety
Because an individual experiences moral strain, they shift to an agentic state of mind to alleviate the moral strain. Disobedience to authority figures can also produce relief once an individual has removed themselves from a situation.
What is meant by agentic shift?
Meet others, quickly judge if the other person is higher or lower than us in the social hierarchy and the extent to which they have legitimate authority.
When confronted with a legitimate authority figure, we change from our normal autonomous state to the agentic state.
The change from one state to another is agentic shift.
Supporting evidence for Milgram’s agency theory
Autonomous state: the experimenter had power over the study and gave each ppt tasks. He was in charge.
Agentic state: the teachers (ppts) are the ones at an agentic state as they were obeying orders from authority figures and they had no power due to the 4 prods.
Moral strain: the teachers (ppts) went through moral strain (eg, twitching, showing signs of distress and anxiety)
Supporting evidence: Milgram
Found that 100% of ppts would administer a shock of 300 volts to confederate as a punishment for making a mistake of a work learning task and 65% would go right up to 450 volts, being the shock labelled ‘danger, extreme shock’
Supporting evidence: Blass
Looked at cross-cultural comparisons of obedience to authority and found very similar obedience rates cross-culturally which suggests all societies instil obedient behaviour during socialisation.
Opposing evidence: Perry
Questioned the internal validity of this evidence saying that ppts saw through the deception. She reviewed released evidence from Yale university archives of his (Milgram) study and the evidence suggests that many ppts questioned whether the shocks were real.
Opposing evidence: Rand & Jacobson
Conducted a study with nurses. Found that 16 out of 18 (89%) nurses failed to obey orders from a doctor who asked them to overdose the drug Valium. Shows that despite the doctors being an obvious source of authority, most of the sample remained autonomous. Demonstrates that the nurses did consider themselves responsible for their actions and therefore questions the suggestion of the agentic shift.
