Social Influence: Obedience - Legitimacy Of Authority, Agentic State, Authoritarian Personality

Question 1

Describe Legitimacy Of Authority.

Answer 1

• Explanation suggests people are more likely to obey to people who they perceive to have authority over them.
• This authority is justified by the individual’s position of power within a social hierarchy.
• Individuals are taught to recognise the value of obedience to authority figure at a young age as it helps to keep stability in society.
• If an authoritarian figure is seen as legit then these individuals are granted power to punish to others.

Question 2

Legitimacy Of Authority Evaluation: Strength - Research Support.

Answer 2

• There is research support for legitimacy of authority as an explanation of obedience.
• Blass and Schmitt showed a film of Milgram’s study to students and asked to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to Mr Wallace (the learner).
• The students blamed ‘experimenter’ rather than the participants.
• The students said the responsibility was due to the legitimate authority : the ‘experimenter’ was at the top of the authority hierarchy in the situation and therefore his authority was legitimate.
• This shows that the students recognised legitimate authority as a cause of obedience providing support to this explanation.

Question 3

Legitimacy Of Authority Evaluation: Strength - Cultural Differences.

Answer 3

• The legitimacy of authority explanation can help to explain cultural differences in obedience.
• Many studies shows that countries differ in the degree to which people are traditionally obedient to authority. For example Kilham and Mann replicated Milgram’s procedure in Australia and found that only 16% of their participants went to the maximum shock level whereas for German participants it was 85%.
• This shows that in some cultures, authority figures are more likely to be accepted as legitimate and therefore entitled to demand obedience from other individuals.
• This reflects the way that different societies are structured and how children are raised to perceive authority figures, increasing the validity of the explanation.

Question 4

Legitimacy Of Authority Evaluation: Strength - Explain Real-Life War Crimes.

Answer 4

• The legitimacy of authority explanation can explain how obedience can lead to real-life war crimes.
• Kelman and Hamilton argue that the My Lai massacre, where around 500 Vietnam civilians were killed by American soldiers, can be understood in terms of the power hierarchy of the US army.
• This explanation therefore has practical application.
• If legitimacy of authority is a useful explanation of real-life war crimes, then there is the possibility that it could help us to understand how to prevent such crimes in the future by challenging legitimate authority rather than obeying mindlessly.

Question 5

Legitimacy Of Authority Evaluation: Strength - Supporting Evidence (Milgram).

Answer 5

• There is supporting evidence for the legitimacy of authority explanation.
• In Milgram’s original research, which took place at Yale University, the percentage of participants administering the full 450 volts was high (63.5%).
• However, when the experiment took place in a run down building obedience dropped to 48%.
• This change in location reduced the legitimacy of the authority, as participants were less likely to trust the experiment.
• This meant that the participants were far less likely to obey, therefore supporting this explanation for obedience.

Question 6

Legitimacy Of Authority Evaluation: Strength - Support Evidence Of Aviation Accidents.

Answer 6

• Tarnow provided support for the power of legitimate authority through a study of aviation accidents.
• He studied data from all serious aircraft accidents in the US between 1978-1990 where there was a flight voice recorder and where flight crew actions were contributing factor to the crash.
• Tarnow found that there was excessive dependence on the captain’s authority and expertises
• This shows the power that a legitimate authority can have over individuals in the real world.
• This therefore provides support for the legitimacy of authority as an explanation for obedience.

Question 7

What Is The Autonomous State?

Answer 7

• Individuals feel responsible for their own actions and therefore individuals behave according to their own principles.

Question 8

What Is The Agentic Shift?

Answer 8

• When an individual changes from an autonomous state to an agentic state.

Question 9

What Is An Agentic State?

Answer 9

• A mental state where individuals don’t feel personally responsible to their own behaviours as they believe they acting for an authority figure.
• Individual gives up their free will by handing over responsibility to authority figure, this frees them up from the demands of their conscience and allows them to obey authority figure.
• Individuals feel high level anxiety due to a moral strain as they know what they are doing is wrong but feel powerless.

Question 10

What Is Binding Factors?

Answer 10

• Milgram argues they are aspects of a situation that allows agent to ignore or minimise the damaging effects of their behaviour therefore reducing their moral strain such as blaming the victim or denying the damage done to the victim.

Question 11

Milgram’s Research And Agentic State.

Answer 11

• Milgram’s original experiment 65% participants who administered full 450 volts, were argued to be in agentic state as they were told that the experimenter would take full responsibility.
• In one variation an additional confederate administered the electric shock on behalf of the teacher which made the amount administered to 450 volts rise to 92.5%.
• Variation therefore highlights the power of shifting responsibility (agentic shift), as the participants shifted the responsibility to the person administering the electric shock.
• The ability to enter agentic state increases the level of obedience as personal responsibility level decreases.

Question 12

Agentic State Evaluation: Weakness - Does Not Provide Full Explanation.

Answer 12

• The agentic shift does not explain many of the research findings.
• It does not explain why some of the participants in Milgram’s experiment did not obey.
• The agentic state explanation suggests that as humans involved in social hierarchies, all participants should have obeyed the orders and hand over responsibility to the experimenter, however this was only 65%.
• This suggests that agentic state only accounts for some situations of obedience.

Question 13

Agentic State Evaluation: Weakness - Does Not Explain Many Other Research Findings.

Answer 13

• The agentic shift does not explain many of the research findings.
• It does not explain the findings from Hofling et al’s study.
• The agentic state explanation predicts that as the nurses handed over responsibility to the doctor, they should have showed high levels of anxiety (similar to Milgram’s participants) as they understood what they were doing was wrong but this was not the case as they showed no moral strain.
• This suggests that the agentic shift only accounts for some situations of obedience.

Question 14

Agentic State Evaluation: Strength - Outsider Opinion On Responsibility.

Answer 14

• Blass and Schmitt showed a film of Milgram’s study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the learner.
• The students blamed the experimenter rather than the participants.
• If the students felt as though the responsibility was on the experimenter as the authority figure, it can therefore imply the teacher gave their responsibility to the experimenter and therefore continued the electric shocks.
• This suggests that the agentic state is a valid explanation of obedience.

Question 15

Agentic State Evaluation: Weakness - Nazi Behaviour Cannot Be Explained By AS.

Answer 15

• There is research evidence to show that the behaviour of the Nazis cannot be explained in terms of authority and agentic shift.
• Mandel described an incident where men from the German police shot civilians in a small town in Poland.
• This was despite the fact they did not have direct orders to do so as they had been told they would be assigned to other duties if they preferred.
• This shows that they were not shifting responsibility otherwise they would of taken the opportunity to do other opportunities.
• This reduces the validity of the agentic state explanation.

Question 16

Agentic State Evaluation: Strength - Milgram Supporting Evidence.

Answer 16

• In Milgram’s original experiment 65% of participants administered the full 450 volts and were arguably in an agentic state.
• However, in on variation an additional confederate administered the electric shock to the full 450 volts and obedience rose to 92.5%.
• This variations highlights the power of shifting responsibility as these participants were able to shift their responsibility to the confederate and continued to 450 volts as they felt less responsible.
• Therefore the ability to enter the agentic state does increase the level of obedience as the level of personal responsibility decreases.

Question 17

Agentic State Evaluation: Weakness - Deterministic.

Answer 17

• The agentic state explanation suggests that behaviour is not controlled by individuals.
• It suggests that free will can be given up.
• This is deterministic as it means behaviour is controlled by something else e.g the power the authority holds.
• This does not fit with the judiciary system which suggests that we have control ver our actions and should be held responsible for the consequences of them.

Question 18

What Is The Authoritarian Personality?

Answer 18

• It is a dispositional explanation which argues that certain personality characteristics are associated with higher levels of obedience.
• Characteristics include: obedient to authority, extreme respect for authority showing submissiveness, hatred for people they perceive as lower social status, traditional attitudes, inflexible outlook.
• Believed the cause of this personality is due to harsh parenting where there is extreme strict discipline, expectations of loyalty, impossible high standards, severe criticism of failures, conditional love.
• This experience creates resentment and hostility in the child and their fear and anger are displaced onto people who are weaker.

Question 19

Authoritarian Personality Research - Adorno Et Al

Answer 19

Procedure: Adorono et al investigated the causes of obedience personality in a study of 2000 middle class white American and their unconscious attitudes to other racial groups. This was primarily done through F scale, which the F stands for Fascist which is a a dictator with complete people that people follow.

Findings: Those who scored high on the F-scale identified with ‘strong’ people and were generally more disrespectful and hatred for the weak. They were conscious of their own and others status and showed excessive respect to higher status. They had distinct stereotypes and saw things very black and white.

Question 20

Authoritarian Explanation Evaluation: Strength - Milgrams Original Study And F-scale.

Answer 20

• Milgram and Elms conducted interviews with some of the individuals involved in Milgram’s original study.
• Those participants who were highly obedient, were significantly more authoritarian on the F-scale than disobedient participants.
• This suggests that there is a link between authoritarian personality and obedience.

Question 21

Authoritarian Explanation Evaluation: Weakness - Correlation But Not Causation.

Answer 21

• Milgram and Elm’s research is only correlational.
• It is impossible to draw conclusions that authoritarian personality causes obedience on the basis of this result.
• It may be a third factor involved. Hyman and Sheatsly thought the both obedience and authoritarian personality were associated with lower levels of education and therefore do not directly link with eachother.
• This limits the authoritarian personality explanation of obedience.

Question 22

Authoritarian Explanation Evaluation: Weakness - Limited Explanation.

Answer 22

• Individuals personality explanation of obedience cannot easily explain the explanation of a country’s majority.
• It is unlikely that all German’s who were obedient, racist and anti-Semitic had an authoritarian personality.
• This is a limitation in Adorno’s theory because it is clear that there is an alternative explanation such as social identity theory which would be more realistic.
• The majority of German people identified with the anti-Semitic Nazi state and scapegoated towards the Jews.
• This limits the applicability of the theory.

Question 23

Authoritarian Explanation Evaluation: Weakness - Methodological Problems.

Answer 23

• A limitation of the authoritarian personality explanation is that the methodology can be criticised.
• The scale has been criticised because every item is worded in the same direction.
• This means you can get a high score for authoritarian personality for simply ticking the same column.
• Therefore suggests people who agree with the items on the F-scale may not necessarily have authoritarian personality and just happened to agree with one column.

Question 24

Authoritarian Explanation Evaluation: Weakness - Correlation But Not Causation.

Answer 24

• The link between authoritarian personalities and harsh parenting is only a correlation.
• There is no way to establish cause and effect as experiments in this area cannot be carried out due to ethical issues.
• Therefore we do not know the true reasons for an authoritarian personality.
• This limits the validity of the explanation.