Social-psychological factors

Question 1

what are the 2 Social-psychological factors?

Answer 1

1. agentic state
2. legitamacy of authority

Question 2

define agentic state

Answer 2

• agentic state occurs when we act on behalf of another person and a person feels no personal responsibility for their actions (act as an agent)
• Commit acts they personally morally oppose to
• Feel discomfort committing these actions but they are unable to resist the demands of the person in authority

Question 3

autonomous state

Answer 3

where a person behaves according their own principles and feels responsible for their own actions

Question 4

agentic shift

Answer 4

moving from an autonomous state to an agentic state.
- feel less responsible for your own actions and behave as an ‘agent’ to the authority figure.

Question 5

binding factors

Answer 5

aspects of a situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and reduce the ‘moral strain’ of obeying immoral orders.

Question 6

destructive authority

Answer 6

• History has shown that leaders (e.g. Hitler, Stalin) use legitimate authority destructively, ordering people to behave in cruel, dangerous, and stupid ways.

Question 7

Legitimacy of authority

Answer 7

• We obey people at the top of the social hierarchy
• We give up some of our independence to people we trust to exercise their authority appropriately.
• We learned to accept this authority during childhood from parents and teachers. = socialisation
• some people have the right to punish/harm others e.g. police