Obedience - Social-psychological factors

Question 1

What is the agentic state?

Answer 1

• 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. This frees us from the demands of our consciences and allows us to obey even a destructive authority figure.

Question 2

What is the autonomous state?

Answer 2

• ‘Autonomy’ means to be independent or free. So a person in an autonomous state is free to behave according to their own principles and therefore feels a sense of responsibility for their own actions.

Question 3

What is the agentic shift?

Answer 3

• The shift from the autonomous state to the agentic state.
• Milgram (1974) suggested this occurs when someone perceives someone else as a figure of authority, having greater power because of their position in society.

Question 4

What are binding factors?
(Why do people remain in the agentic state)

Answer 4

• Binding factors are the aspects of the situation that allow someone to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour reducing the moral strain they feel (leads to victim blaming or denial)

Question 5

What is the legitimacy of authority?

Answer 5

• An explanation for obedience that suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. This authority is justified by the individual’s position of power within a social hierarchy.

Question 6

What is destructive authority?

Answer 6

• When people of authority use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes, ordering people to behave in callous ways.

Question 7

(AO3) What is a strength of this explanation?
(1)

Answer 7

Research support:

• Blass and Schmitt (2001) - showed a film of Milgram’s study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the learner, Mr Wallice.
• The students blamed the ‘experimenter’ rather than the participant. The students also indicated that the responsibility was due to legitimate authority and expert authority.
• In other words, they recognised legitimate authority as the cause of obedience, supporting this explanation.

Question 8

(AO3) What is a strength of this explanation?
(2)

Answer 8

Cultura differences:

• The legitimacy of authority explanation is that it takes cultural differences into account. Many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people are traditionally obedient to authority.
• Kilham and Mann (1974) - replicated Milgram’s procedure in Australia and found that only 16% of participants went to the maximum shock level. Mantell (1971) - found that in Germany it was 85%.
• This shows that in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals. Reflects how different societies are structured and how children are raised to percieve authority figures. These findings from cross-cultural research increases the validity of the explanation.

Question 9

(AO3) What is a weakness of this explanation?

Answer 9

Obedience alibi:

• Mandel (1998) found that the behaviour of Nazis cannot be explained via agentic shift. This was shown by German Reserve Police Battalion 101 who obeyed orders to shoot civilians in Poland. They were told they could do other duties if they wanted to.
• This shows that there was no agentic shift as they did not see themselves as acting as the agents of a higher authority. They were given a choice and acted autonomously out of hatred, prejudice, racism and greed. This differs from the over-simplified view presented by Milgram, in which behaviour is the result of a single factor - acting as the agent of a destructive authority.