social influence lessons 8-9 Flashcards
what is 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
explains people remain in an agentic state because they don’t want to deal with the hassle of overcoming the situation and so don’t feel responsible
evaluation of agentic state theory
strengths: psychologists 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: hofling study with doctor smith who gave orders to nurses to give high doses of medication which were double the recommended. 95% gave the high dose. bickman study whereby he told the public to pick up litter in different uniforms, guard, milkman, normal clothes. 90% obeyed guard. 30% obeyed regular clothes
weaknesses: doesn’t explain why people are able to resist legitimate authority as in milgrams experiment 35% did not obey even though the experimenter had legitimate authority
explanations for obedience (authoritarian personality)
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: miller found those who scored higher on f scale were likely to obey an order of holding electric wire in maths test and get harmed. Another psychologist asked pps to shock themselves w a wrong answer and those higher on f scale did so.
weaknesses: each item on f scale 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.
