Obedience: Situational Explanations

Question 1

Agentic State

Answer 1

Proposed by Milgram after seeing Eichmann’s defence for his actions in Nazi death camps was due to obeying orders
- A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour as we believe we’re acting as an “agent” for a authority figure => frees us from our conscience

Question 2

Autonomous State

Answer 2

Opposite of agentic state

Feel free to behave according to their own principles and has responsibility for their own actions

Question 3

Agentic shift

Answer 3

Shift from autonomy to agency

Milgram (1974) suggested when a person perceives another as an authority figure - higher position in social hierarchy

Question 4

Binding Factors

Answer 4

Aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour + reduce moral strain
Milgram proposed strategies such as shifting responsibility to victims as a way to denying damage done

Question 5

Legitimacy of authority

Answer 5

We are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us
Authority is justified by the individual’s position of power within a social hierarchy

Question 6

Consequences of Legitmacy of Authority

Answer 6

Since some have the power to punish others like police + courts, we give up some independence/control to trust they’ll give use authority properly

Learnt from childhood from parents and then teachers + adults

Question 7

Destructive Authority - Through History

Answer 7

Charismatic leaders like Hitler and Pol Pot have used their legitimate powers for destructive purposes

Evident in Milgram’s study when the Experimenter used prods to order pps to behave in horrible ways

Question 8

Research Support for Agentic State

Answer 8

Strength - Milgram’s studies
Most pps resisted giving shocks and often asked the Experimenter qs like “Who’s responsible if the Learner is harmed?”
When the Experimenter said they was, pps continued with the shocks w/o objections
==> Shows pps acted as Experimenter’s “agents” when they felt no longer responsible

Question 9

Agentic Stare Explantion is limited - AO3

Answer 9

Limitation - doesn’t explain many research findings
E.g. Rank + Jacobson’s (1977) - 16/18 nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to overdose a patient despite being an authority figure
Remained autonomous => suggests agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience

Question 10

Obedience albi revisited - AO3

Answer 10

Mandel (1998) described an incident in WWII w/ German Reserve Police Battalion 101
Shot many civilians in a small Polish town w/o direct orders to + could be assigned other duties —> were autonomous

Question 11

Explains Cultural Differences - AO3

Answer 11

Strength
Kilham + Mann (1974) - only 16% of female Australian pps went to 450V
Mantel (1971) - 85% of German pps did

=> shows that in some cultures authority is more accepted as legitimate + reflects how diff societies are structured and raise children to perceive authority

Question 12

Cannot explain all (dis)obedience

Answer 12

Limitation
Rank + Jacobson - most disobeyed despite working in a rigidly hierarchical authority structure
Significant minority of Milgram’s pps disobeyed despite Experimenter’s scientific authority

=> Suggests disposition plays a role innate tendencies to obey have more influence than legitimacy

Question 13

Real-world crimes of obedience

Answer 13

Kelman + Hamilton (1989) - argue that a real world crime of obedience e.g. the My Lai Massacre can be understood in terms of power hierarchy in the US army
Commanding officers have a clearer hierarchy than hospital doctors w/ greater power to punish