Obedience: Social-psychological factors

Question 1

Social support:

Answer 1

Whether or not a dissenter is present with you.

Question 2

What is the opposite of an agentic state?

Answer 2

Autonomous state.

Question 3

Legitimacy of the system:

Answer 3

The extent to which an institution (government, army, school, etc) is a genuine source of authority.

Question 4

What was Milgrams suggestion as to why an agentic state occurs?

Answer 4

Milgram (1974) suggested an agentic state occurs when a person perceives someone else as a figure of authority.

Question 5

What is being an ‘agent’?

Answer 5

Someone who acts in place of another, they are a puppet essentially.

Question 6

Agentic shift:

Answer 6

The shift between an autonomous state (taking responsibility) into an agentic state when they pass this responsibility to the authority figure.

Question 7

Why would someone stay in an agentic state?

Answer 7

Binding factors - aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effects of their behaviour, thus reducing the ‘moral strain’.

Question 8

What effect does legitimacy of authority have in real life?

Answer 8

Most societies are structured in a hierarchical way, this means certain positions hold authority over the rest of us.

Question 9

Legitimacy of authority figure:

Answer 9

The extent to which a person who gives an order is perceived to be in a genuine position of power.

Question 10

What name is given to the change between autonomy to ‘agency’?

Answer 10

Agentic shift.

Question 11

What is being ‘autonomous’?

Answer 11

Being independent or free, they behave according to their own principles and therefore feels a sense of responsibility for their actions.

Question 12

Gradual commitment:

Answer 12

Carrying out a small request (order) makes you feel obliged to follow-up with increasingly larger demands.

Question 13

Shifting the responsibility (scapegoating) is an example of what?

Answer 13

A binding factor, they use to reduce the ‘moral strain’.

Question 14

Binding factors:

Answer 14

Aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effects of their behaviour, thus reducing the ‘moral strain’.

Question 15

The role of buffers:

Answer 15

Anything that reduces the impact of an order given or anything that hides the consequences of following through with an order.

Question 16

What is destructive authority?

Answer 16

When a legitimate authority becomes disruptive, seen many times in history (Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot).

Question 17

AO3 - Cultural differences.

Answer 17

A strength of legitimacy of authority is that it accounts for cultural differences in obedience. Replications of Milgram’s study have shown obedience rates as low as 16% in Australia and high as 85% in Germany, showing that different cultures accept legitimacy of authority differently.

Question 18

AO3 - The ‘obedience alibi’.

Answer 18

A limitation of the agentic state is that there is evidence showing that Nazi behaviour cannot be explained like this. Mandel (1998) found that some soldiers obeyed indirect orders to shoot a small town, an order which can be easily disobeyed.

Question 19

A03 - Research support.

Answer 19

Blass and Schmitt (2001) showed a film of Milgram’s study to students and asked them to identify who was responsible for the harm to Mr. Wallace. The students blamed the ‘experimenter’ rather than the teacher and placed responsibility on legitimate authority.

Question 20

AO3 - Real-life crimes.

Answer 20

A strength for the legitimacy of authority is that it can help explain how obedience can lead to war crimes such as the My Lai massacre.

Question 21

AO3 - Limited explanation.

Answer 21

The agentic shift doesn’t explain many of the research findings, such as why some participants did not obey. The agentic shift also cannot explain the research findings of Hofling (1966) as the nurses did not show anxiety during the process.

Question 22

The Mai Lai massacre can be explained through which social-psychological principle?

Answer 22

Legitimacy of authority.

Question 23

What is a consequence of the legitimacy of authority?

Answer 23

Some people are granted the power to punish others (police, judges, governments etc) meaning we give up some independence to trust them to exercise their power properly.