social influence lessons 8-9 Flashcards
agentic state theory (milgram)
when a person carries out orders with little responsibility as they see themselves as under the authority of another. change from independent state to agentic state is known as agentic shift
binding factors
helps those under agentic state feel no responsibility and is why they remain in agentic state and they shift responsibility to the victim. he applies this to his own study arguing pps viewed themselves as subordinates to the experimenter and so are not responsible.
evaluation of agentic state theory
strengths: blass and schmidt showed milgram experiment to students and asked who was responsible to which they said the experimenter as the pps were merely agents and as the experimenter was a scientist he was of higher authority.
weaknesses: doesn’t explain why other pps didn’t obey experimenter or why one nurse didn’t prescribe the drug in höflings study even though the nurse was an agent. also mandel explained when men were not given any orders to shoot people in poland yet they still did.
legitimate authority
people are socialised to obey certain legitimate authority figures. we are taught to obey bc we fear punishment or trust them. a consequence of legitimate authority is that people are granted to punish others. the problem lies when the legitimate authority is destructive.
evaluation of legitimate authority
strengths: kelman and hamilton argued that the my lai massacre when soldiers blew up buildings and killed 504 ppl only one soldier was found guilty as they said they were only doing duties.
kilham and mann replicated milgram study in australia but only found 16% obeyed. when mantel did it in germany 85% obeyed which shows the cultural differences in perceived legitimacy of authority and how different cultures have different upbringings which strengthens the explanation
weaknesses: not all legitimate authority should be obeyed and in milgrams study it shows people will obey the authority figure even if it led to harm. harold shipman was a trusted authority figure of a doctor and he killed over 200 patients wo suspicion. question legitimate authority.
explanations for obedience
adorno proposed explanation and traits that ppl with authoritarian personalities have: servile to ppl of higher status, hostile to ppl of lower status, preoccupied w power, inflexible w beliefs and values, conformist, categorise as us or them, dogmatic ( intolerable of ambiguity). people developed these personalities due to harsh discipline in upbringing. they cannot take anger out on parents so they act submissive towards them. adorno created f scale and tested on 2000 white americans .
evaluation of explanations of authoritarian personality
strengths: elms and milgram selected 20 obedient and 20 unobedient pps and made them carry out mmbi and f scale tests. little difference in mmpi results but obedient pps we’re more authoritarian in the f scale. a obedient ones were less close to fathers. miller found those who scored higher on f scale were likely to hold wire in test and get harmed. psychologist asked pps to schock themselves w a wrong answer and those higher on f scale did so.
weaknesses: not all germans can posses authoritarian personality. social identity theory is more relevant to explain obedience than authoritarian. each item on questionnaire is worded in same direction so it is easy to get high score. questions closed: no room to explain. in interview adorno knew scores so he would show interviewer bias.
