Obedience: Situational Explanations Flashcards
What is the agentic state?
You are an ‘agent’ who acts in the place of another.
Experience a moral strain, when they do something wrong but feel powerless to disobey.
E.g. Adolf Eichmann defended his involvement in brutal Nazi war crimes by saying he was just obeying orders and that his conscience was completely clear.
What is an autonomous state?
Opposite of the agentic state.
Have free will over your actions.
What is the agentic shift?
The shift from the autonomous state, that’s Milgram said occurs when someone sees someone else as an authority figure.
What are binding factors?
They allow people to minimise their moral strain.
E.g blaming the victim (knocking someone over in a car but saying they crossed the road when they shouldn’t have)
What is the legitimacy of authority?
Society is a hierarchy, which most people accept as legitimate, allowing those at the top to have more power.
An example is uniform which allows those with power to seem more legitimate.
We learn to accept legitimacy of authority in childhood.
What is destructive authority?
People use legitimate authority to be destructive e.g. Hitler
This was present in Milgram’s study when the experimenter used prods to order participants to act in a certain way.
Strengths of situational explanations for obedience
Supported by Milgram’s research: shock study used the prod “I am responsible” which acted as a binding factor to remove moral strain from the participant.
Studies show differences in agentic shift in cultures: Kilham and Mann found that only 16% of Australian women went all the way to 450 volts, but Mantell found that 85% of Germans did, therefore agentic shift is more likely in some cultures than others.
Limitations of situational explanations for obedience
Limited explanation: 35% didn’t obey in Milgram’s study, so this does not offer a full explanation, so is reductionist.
Limited explanation #2: Rank and Jakobson found that 16 out of 18 nurses didn’t obey doctors orders to administer excess drugs to patients, showing that the agentic shift only occurs in some situations of authority.
