obedience - situational explanation Flashcards
define the agentic state.
a mental state where people feel no personal reasonability for our behaviour because we believe ourself to be acting for an authority figure
act on behalf of another person. no personal responsibility
what did milligram say about the agentic state
obedience to destructive authority occurs because a person becomes an ‘agent’, someone who acts for or in place of another.
what is the opposite of the agentic state
autonomous state
define the autonomous state
person in an autonomous state behaves according to their own principles and feels responsible for their own actions.
indepdent and free.
when dose the agentic state occur
a person defers to the authority figure.
what is the shift from autonomy to being an ‘agent’ called
agentic shift
when dose a person have power
because of their position in a social hierarchy.
perceive someone else as an authority figure.
what is a binding factor
aspects of a situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and reduce the ‘moral strain’ they feel.
eg : victimising
define legitimacy of authority
explanation for obedience. suggests we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us
how is authority assigned
they wield is legitimate in the sense that it is agreed by society.
when do we learn to accept authority
in childhood from parents and teachers
what is a consequence of authority
some people are granted the power to punish others.
one strength of the agentic state,
research support.
Blass and Schmidt : showed students a film of Milgram’s study and asked them to identify who was responsible for harm to the learner.
Students blamed the ‘experimenter’ rather than the participant.
responsibility was due to legitimate authority - students recognised legitimate authority as the cause of obedience, supporting this explanation.
