Obedience - Situational Explanations Flashcards
What is the agentic state?
A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure. This is achieved through the agentic shift, when a person receives an instruction from an authority figure. In most social groups, people defer to the legitimate authority and therefore go into the agentic state.
What is the autonomous state?
Independent or free - free to behave according to their own principles and feeling a sense of responsibility.
What are binding factors?
Aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and reduce the moral strain they feel. This can include shifting responsibility to the victim or denying the damage they were doing.
What is the strength of agentic state - research support?
Milgram’s studies support this. Most of his participants asked the experimenter who was responsible if Mr Wallace is harmed and when the experimenter replied they were responsible the participant finished quickly with no objections. This shows when they knew they weren’t responsible they became agentic.
What is the limitation of agentic state - limited explanation?
It doesn’t explain many findings about obedience. Rank and Jacobson’s study found that 16/18 nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient despite the doctor being an obvious authority figure - the nurses remained autonomous.
What is legitimacy of authority?
Most societies are hierarchically structured - the authority teachers or police have over us is legitimate as in it is agreed by society. We agree to this because it allows society to function smoothly. This is learnt from obeying parents and teachers in childhood by giving up some independence.
What is destructive authority?
History has shown that charismatic leaders (Hitler, Stalin) use their legitimate power destructively, ordering people to behave in cruel and dangerous ways. This was obvious in Milgram’s study with the experimenter’s prods.
What is the strength of LoA - explains cultural differences?
A strength is that it is a useful account of cultural differences - Kilham and Mann found that only 16% of Australian women went all the way up to 450 volts, but Mantell found that Germans were 85% likely. This shows in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals, reflecting the ways that different societies are structured.
What is the limitation of LoA - cannot explain disobedience?
Cannot explain disobedience within an accepted hierarchy - Rank and Jacobson’s study. They disobeyed despite the hierarch. This suggests some people are more or less obedient and innate tendencies have a greater influence than legitimacy of authority.
