Obedience: situational explanations

Question 1

what are the two parts of the situational explanation

Answer 1

• agentic state
• legitimacy of authority

Question 2

what is the agentic state

Answer 2

• when a person believes they are an agent and acts for or in place of another person.
• they are not an unfeeling puppet, they have high anxiety (moral strain) when they realise that what they are doing is wrong but feel powerless to disobey.

Question 3

explain the autonomous state of genetic state

Answer 3

• is the opposite of being in an genetic state.
• autonomous state is free to behave according to their own principles and feels a sense of responsibility to their own actions.
• the shift from autonomy to agent of state is called the agentic shift (Milgram 1974). Occurs when someone sees someone else as the authority figure. The authority figure has greater power because they have a higher position in a social hierarchy

Question 4

what are the binding factors to the agentic state

Answer 4

• Milgram observed that many of his participants said they wanted to stop but believed they were powerless to do so.
• binding factors are 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.
• often ppl shift the responsibility on to someone else or denying the damage they were doing to others.

Question 5

what is legitimacy of authority

Answer 5

• those in authority wield power as it’s agreed by everyone in society therefore making their authority legitimate

Question 6

what are consequences of legitimacy of authority

Answer 6

• some people are granted the power to punish others.

Question 7

what is destructive authority (in legitimacy of authority)

Answer 7

• leaders like Hitler or Stalin use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes, ordering people to behave in ways that are cruel and dangerous