SI, Obedience

Question 1

What are the 2 explanations for obedience?

Answer 1

• agentic state: acting on orders from a figure of authority with little personal responsibility
• legitimacy of authority: certain positions carry power, learned via socialisation

Question 2

What is destructive authority?

Answer 2

• power used for destructive purposes, obedience used to harm others

Question 3

Pros of explanations for obedience

Answer 3

• support for agentic state: Blass & Schmitt 2001, asked observers of baseline study who they thought was responsible for the shocks issued, common answer was experimenter, lack of personal responsibility in agentic state
• support for legitimacy of authority: cultural differences, countries where obedience is less valued (Australia) has lower obedience rates compared to Germany where obedience to authority is highly valued, suggests LoA does play a role

Question 4

Cons of explanations for obedience

Answer 4

• agentic state cannot explain why some participants did not obey, explanation cannot be applied to everyone, unrepresentative & ungeneralisable, cannot explain all obedience like Nazi’s in WWII