Obedience: Situational explanations Flashcards
What are situational explanations?
Any explanation of behaviour that highlights importance of the environment (external)
What does Milgram say Agentic state is?
-A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure (as their agent)
- frees us from demands of our conscience & allows us to obey even a destructive authority figures
Why are agents not unfeeling puppets?
-they experience high anxiety (moral strain) when they realise what they are doing is wrong but feel powerless to disobey
What is autonomous state?
-opposite of being in an agentic state
-person is free to behave according to their own principles & feels a sense of responsibility for their own actions
What is the agentic shift & when does this occur?
-The shift from autonomy to agency
-Milgram suggested this occurs when a person perceives someone else as an authority figure
-the authority figure has power as they have a higher position in the social hierarchy
What are binding factors?
aspects of a situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour & thus reduce the ‘moral strain’ they are feeling
Examples of binding factors at play in Milgram’s study?
-shifting of blame to confederate
‘their fault for volunteering’
-when the experimenter said they’ll take the blame
What is legitimacy of authority?
Explanation that suggest we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. This authority is justified by their position of power within a social hierarchy
How is society structured?
-in a hierarchal way
-people in certain positions have authority over us
-This authority is legitimate as it is agreed by society - allows society to run smoothly
What are the consequences of LOA?
-some people are granted the power to punish others i.e. police
-Willing to give up some of our independence & hand control of our behaviour to people we trust to exercise authority appropriately (learn LOA from childhood)
How is destructive authority shown in Milgram’s study?
When the experimenter used prods to order participants to behave in ways that went against their conscience
What support is there for the role of agentic state?
-Milgram’s study
-participants asked ‘who is responsible if the learner is harmed’
When experimenter replied ‘I’m responsible’ pp’s often continued with procedure with no further objections
»acted as experimenter’s agent, perceieved no longer responsible
Why is agentic state explanation limited?
-doesn’t explain many research findings about obedience
-Rank & Jacobson found that 16/18 hospital nurses disobeyed order from a doctor to give excessive drug dose to patient
-naturalistic=high ecological validity
-discrediting agentic state theory
How does Bickman support LOA explanation?
-conducted a field experiment
-three male confederates dress as a milkman, guard or as a civilian & made requests of passers-by in a street
e.g. pick up litter
-more likely to obey guard (viewed as an authority figure) and least likely to obey civilian
What is a limitation of LOA explanation?
-cannot explain instances of disobedience in a hierarchy where LOA is clear & accepted
-e.g. Rank & Jacobson study
-most disobedient despite working in a hierarchal structure
-suggests some people may be more or less obedient (innate tendencies)
