S Explanations for Obedience - AO3 Flashcards
Research support from Milgram’s baseline study for the agentic state✅
P - A strength is that there’s research support from Milgram’s baseline study for the agentic state.
E - Most of Milgram’s participants resisted giving the shocks at some point and often asked the experimenter questions about the procedure. One of these was “Who is responsible if Mr Wallace dies?’ The experimenter replied
“I’m responsible” and in turn the experimenter then continued to follow orders.
E - This shows clear evidence for the agentic state as once the naive participant was aware that the experimenter took full responsibility, they saw the experimenter as a legitimate authority figure and so didn’t feel the responsibility for their actions as the experimenter would always take fault.
Participant variables in agentic state❌
P - A limitation of the agentic state is that it fails to consider participant variables and how each person has a different personality.
E - For example, the study of Rank and Jacobson (1977) found that 16 out of 18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer
an excessive drug dose to a patient
E- These results may mean that the participants have different personalities where they don’t conform and Milgram failed to consider this in his study.
L- As a result, Milgram’s study may not only compromise internal validity, but also external validity as results would be difficult to generalise.
Cultural differences of obedience ✅
P - One strength of the legitimate explanation is that it is a useful account for cultural differences in obedience.
E - For example, Kilham and Mann (1974) found that only 16% of Australian women went up to to 450V in a Milgram-like study. This differs from Mantell (1971) who found 80% obedience in German participants.
E - This shows that authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate in different cultures. This reflects the way that different societies are structured and has children are raised to perceive authority.
