obedience: situational explanations

Question 1

agentic state

Answer 1

a mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure

Question 2

autonomous state

Answer 2

opposite of being in an agentic state
-free to behave according to their own principles and feels a sense of responsibility for their own actions
-the shift from autonomy to ‘agency’ —> agentic shift
—> M suggested that this occurs when a person perceives someone else as an authority figure
-the authority figure has greater power because they have a higher position in a social hierarchy

Question 3

binding factors

Answer 3

M observed that many of his ppts said they wanted to stop but seemed powerless to do so
—>wondered why they remained in an agentic state
—> reason is binding factors—>aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and thus reduce the ‘moral strain’ they are feeling

Question 4

Strength - research suppport

Answer 4

most of M’s ppts resisted giving the shocks at some point, and often asked the E questions about the procedure; “who is responsible if Mr Wallace (L) is harmed?”
—> when the E replied “im responsible”, the ppts often when through the procedure quickly with no further objections
-shows that once ppts perceived they were no longer responsible for their own behaviour, they acted more easily as the E’s agent, as M suggested

Question 5

Limitation - a limited explanation

Answer 5

agentic shift doesn’t explain many research findings about obedience
-e.g, it doesn’t explain the findings of RANK+JACOBSON’S study
-they found that 16/18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders form a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient
-the doctor was an obvious authority figure. But almost all nurses remained autonomous
-suggests that the agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience

Question 6

legitimacy of authority

Answer 6

an explanation for obedience which suggests that we’re more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us

Question 7

destructive authority

Answer 7

problems arise when legitimate authority becomes destructive
-history has often shown that charismatic and powerful leaders can use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes —> ordering people to behave in ways that are cruel and dangerous
-this was obvious in M’s study, when the E used prods to order ppts to behave in ways that went against consciences

Question 8

Strength - explains cultural differences

Answer 8

many studies show the countries differ in the degree to which people are obedient to authority
-e.g. KILHAM + MANN found that only 16% of female Australian ppts went all the way up to 450V in a Milgram style study
-however, MANTELL found a very different figure for German ppts - 85%
-shows that authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals - in some cultures

Question 9

Limitation- cannot explain all (dis)obedience

Answer 9

can’t explain disobedience in a hierarchy where the legitimacy of authority is clear and accepted
-including the nurses, most were disobedient despite working in a rigidly hierarchical
-a significant minority of M’s ppts disobeyed despite recognising the E’s scientific authority
-suggests that some people may just be more obedient than others. It’s possible that innate tendencies to obey/disobey have a greater influence on behaviour than the legitimacy of an authority figure