Obedience: Agentic State and Legitimacy of Authority

Question 1

Define agentic state.

Answer 1

Acting on behalf of someone else (as agent), even when you may not agree with what you’re being told to do.

Question 1

What is moral strain and when do we experience it?

Answer 1

Feelings of anxiety when we realise what we are doing is wrong during the agentic state.

Question 2

What is the autonomous state?

Answer 2

Feeling fully responsible for your actions and acting according to your own morals.

Question 3

What is the agentic shift?
Why does it happen?

Answer 3

The shift from autonomy to the agentic state.
Occurs when we perceive someone else as an authority figure with higher power.

Question 4

What are binding factors?
Why does it reduce moral strain?

Answer 4

Aspects of a situation that allow a person to ignore the harm they are causing and remain in the agentic state even when showing distress. This therefore reduces moral strain.

Question 5

Give an example of a binding factor in Milgram’s study.

Answer 5

The wall between the teacher and learner. This prevents the teacher from seeing the harm they were causing to the learner, so they feel less moral strain

Question 6

What is legitimacy of authority?

Answer 6

The idea as a society that certain people hold power over us, such as police.

Question 7

What powers do legitimate authority figures typically have?

Answer 7

They usually have power to punish us, so we follow their instructions to avoid this.

Question 8

What do we do when we trust authority figures to exercise their powers properly?

Answer 8

We hand over some of our independence to them.

Question 9

What is destructive authority?

Answer 9

When leaders use their powers in cruel and harmful ways.

Question 10

Explain how destructive authority is used in Milgram’s study.

Answer 10

When the experimenter prodded PPTs to continue shocking the learner against their will.

Question 11

What is gradual commitment?

Answer 11

Once you obey a harmless request, you may find it difficult to disengage with the task and you continue to carry out increasingly more harmful requests.

Question 12

Give an example of gradual commitment in Milgram’s study.

Answer 12

In Milgram’s study, the first shock was at 15V and the shocks increased by 15v each time. The PPT may think 15v isn’t much, so they find it hard to stop shocking the learner.

Question 13

Explain the strength of their being research support from Milgram for agentic state.
What did one PPT ask about responsibility in the experiment?
How did this free the PPT to continue acting in the agentic state?

Answer 13

For example, many PPTs questioned the experimenter whether they should be shocking the person. One person even asked who is responsible if the learner is harmed, to which the experimenter replied ‘I am responsible’. This shows that when participants knew with they weren’t responsible, they felt more confident to act on behalf of the experimenter as an agent

Question 14

Explain the strength of the legitimacy explanation providing a useful account of cultural differences.
What percentage of women in an Australian study were willing to give shocks up to 450v?
What percentage of women in a German study gave shocks up to 450v?
What does this show about obedience to authority in cultures?
What does this reflect about societies?

Answer 14

Many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people obey authority to. For example, Kilham and Mann found that 16% of women in an Australian replication of Milgram’s study were willing to give shocks up to 450v. However, in a German experiment like Milgram’s, 85% gave shocks up to 450v. This shows that in some cultures, authority is likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals. This reflects the way that different societies are structured.

Question 15

Explain the limitation of agentic shift not explaining many findings about obedience.
In Rank and Jacobson’s nurse study, out of 18, how many nurses disobeyed a doctors order to administer a drug at 3x the dosage?
What was different about the doctor and drug in this study?
Which state did the nurses remain in in this study?
Therefore, the agentic state cannot account for what?

Answer 15

For example, in Rank and Jacobson’s nurse experiment, it was found that 16/18 nurses disobeyed the doctors order to administer a known drug at 3x the dosage. The doctor was known to the nurses, making him an obvious authority figure, however most nurses remained in the autonomous state and refused to obey, as did some in Milgram’s experiment. This means that agentic state can’t account for all cases of why people obey.

Question 16

Explain the limitation of legitimacy of authority not being able to explain disobedience in a hierarchy where legitimacy of authority is clear and accepted.
Use the example of the nurses in Rank and Jacobson’s study.
Use the percentage of how many obeyed to 450v in Milgram’s baseline study.
What other reasons could be a cause of disobedience?

Answer 16

For example, in Rank and Jacobson’s study, most nurses were disobedient despite working in a clear hierarchical environment. Also, in Milgram’s baseline study, even though the experimenter was a clear figure of authority, only 65% obeyed. This suggests that some PPTs may be more obedient/disobedient as a result of their personality. It’s possible that innate tendencies to obey/disobey have a greater influence on obedience than legitimacy of authority figures.