Obedience - Situational explanations

Question 1

Agentic state

Answer 1

• A mental state where we feel no responsibility for our actions because we were acting for an authority figure
• Autonomous state = opposite - person is free to behave according to their own principles
• Change from autonomous state to agentic state is called agentic shift
• autonomous state - agentic shift - agentic state

Question 2

Binding factors

Answer 2

Aspects of the situation that allow the individual to ignore or minimise the damage of their behaviour and reduce the moral strain they are feeling

Question 3

Legitimacy of authority

Answer 3

Suggests we are more likely to obey people who have more authority over us - e.g police, parents, teachers
- Destructive authority - when legitimate authority becomes destructive - leaders use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes - ordering people to behave in cruel and dangerous ways

Question 4

Agentic state - evaluation - strength

Answer 4

• Research support
• Milgram’s studies
• most of his p’s resisted giving shocks at some point and often asked the experimenter questions about the procedure
• e.g “who is responsible?” and when the experimenter responded “me” the p asked no more questions
• shows once p’s realised they weren’t responsible for their actions they acted more easily as the experimenters agent

Question 5

Agentic state - evaluation - limitation

Answer 5

• Limited explanation
• research found 16/18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient
• doctor = authority figure
• almost all nurses remained autonomous
• suggests agentic shift can only explain some situations of obedience

Question 6

Legitimacy of authority - evaluation - strength

Answer 6

• Explains cultural differences
• many studies show countries differ in the degree of which people are obedient to authority
• research found only 16% female Australian p’s went up to 450v in a study like Milgram’s
• but in Germany it was 85%
• shows in some cultures authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate

Question 7

Legitimacy of authority - evaluation - limitation

Answer 7

• Cannot explain all disobedience
• most nurses were disobedient despite working in a hierarchical authority structure
• significant number of Milgram’s p’s disobeyed despite recognising the experimenter’s authority
• suggests some people may be more or less obedient than others