obedience - situational explanations Flashcards
legitamacy of authority & agentic state
how many situational explanations are there & name
2
- agency theory/state
- legitimacy of authority
who proposed the agency theory
milgram
definition for agency theory proposed by milgram
obedience to a destructive authority occurs as a person doesn’t want to take responsibility & instead believe they are acting for someone else (as an agent)
what does an ‘agent’ feel
- high levels of anxiety (moral strain)
- powerless to disobey
2 proposals by milgram
- obedience is an evolutionary mechanism for sustaining a stable society
- we’re pre-programmed to develop social rules involving giving up some of our own free will
2 states within the agency theory & definitions
- autonomous state = act how our conscience dictates
- agentic state = surrender free will & conscience to serve interests of wider group –> see ourselves as agents of authority
what’s it called when we go from 1 state to the other
agentic shift
why do individuals remain in the agentic state & explain
due to binding factors
–> people use strategies to reduce moral strain & shift responsibility for results of actions onto figure of authority who gave the orders
what are the 2 things required for a person to enter the agentic state
- person giving the order is perceived as being qualified to direct other people’s behaviour (figure of authority)
- person being ordered is able to believe the authority will accept responsibility for what happens
evaluation of milgram’s agency theory - AO1
recall all of above
evaluation of milgram’s agency theory - AO3
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P: research support - milgram’s own studies support role of agentic state in obedience
E: most of milgram’s participants resisted giving shocks at some point & often questioned experimenter. eg. ‘who’s responsible if (the learner) is harmed?’ & the experimenter replied ‘i’m responsible’. the participants often continued the procedure with no objections
T: shows that once the participants perceived they were no longer responsible for their own actions, they acted more easily as the experimenters agent
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P: limited explanation - agentic shift doesn’t explain many research findings on obedience
E: eg. doesn’t explain findings of rank & jacobson’s (1977) study. they found 16/18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient. doctor was clearly an authority figure but almost all nurses remained autonomous.
T: suggests that, at best, the agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience
according to legitimacy of authority, who are people more likely to obey
those who we perceive to have more authority over us
what is the authority justified by
individuals position of power within a social hierarchy
when do we learn our authority figures
from our childhood, parent & teachers (etc.)
give an example of when legitimacy of authority became destructive
- charismatic leaders (eg. hitler, stalin) use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes & order people to behave in cruel/dangerous ways
evaluation of legitimacy of authority - AO3
+)
P: explains cultural differences in obedience
E: eg. kilham & mann (1974) found only 16% of female australian participants went all the way to 450V in a study similar to milgram. however, mantell (1971) found a different figure for german participants at 85%.
T: shows obedience is different in different cultures as they obtain different hierarchies of authority
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P: cannot explain instances of disobedience in a hierarchy where legitimacy of authority is clear & accepted
E: eg. rank & jacobson (1977) found 16/18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient. the doctor was an obvious authority figure but almost all nurses remained autonomous (as did many of milgrams participants)
T: reduces validity of theory as it cannot explain the reasoning behind the nurses disobedience & suggests some may have a bigger tendency to obey than others
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P: different theory
E: the agency theory says obedience occurs when we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour as we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure
T: contradicts legitimacy of authority theory & reduces the validity
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P: practical application
E: kelman & hamilton (1989) argue that real-world crime of obedience (eg. mai lai massacre) can be understood in terms of power to the hierarchy of the us army - commanding orders operate within a clear, legitimate hierarchy
T: means there’s evidence to prove legitimacy of authority happens in everyday life & thus, means the theory obtains high mundane realism
