Social psychological factors

Question 1

What are two social- psychological explanations for obedience?

Answer 1

1. Agentic state
2. Legitimacy of authority

Question 2

What is the agentic state?

Answer 2

When a person sees themselves as an agent for carrying out another person’s wishes

Question 3

What is the autonomous state?

Answer 3

When a person sees themselves as free to behave according to their own principes

Question 4

What is the agentic shift?

Answer 4

The shift from being autonomous to taking on the agentic state- normally when in the presence of a perceived authority

Question 5

What are the binding factors?

Answer 5

Aspects of the situation that bind us to the task and help us to block out the moral strain we are experiencing

Question 6

What is legitimacy of authority?

Answer 6

A person who is perceived to be in a position of social control within a situation

Question 7

What are the two strengths of social psychological factors?

Answer 7

Research support:
Most of Milgram’s participants resisted giving the shocks at some point and often asked the Experimenter ‘Who is responsible if Mr. Wallace (the learner) is harmed?’ When the Experimenter replied ‘I’m responsible’, the participants often went through the procedure quickly with no further objections. This demonstrates that once participants perceived they were no longer responsible for their own behaviour, they acted more easily as the Experimenter’s agent as Milgram suggested.

Real-life applications:
Legitimacy of authority explanation can be used to explain how obedience can lead to real-life war crimes.
E.g My Lai Massacre- During the Vietnam War in 1968 as many as 504 unarmed civilians were killed by American soldiers. Women were gang-raped and people were shot down as they emerged from their homes. Soldiers blew up buildings, burnt the village to the ground and killed all the animals  can be understood in terms of the power hierarchy of the US Army. Only one soldier faced charges and when he was found guilty his defence was that he was doing his duty by following orders. Real-life war crimes are effective examples of individuals relinquishing responsibility for their behaviour, leading to obedience. Therefore, providing further support for the idea that legitimacy of authority can be used to explain why people obey.

Question 8

What are the two limitations of social psychological factors?

Answer 8

Agentic state or just plain cruel?:
Milgram did detect signs of cruelty among his participants, who had used the situation as an opportunity to express their sadistic impulses.
The idea can be given substance using the Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment. Within just a few days, the guards inflicted rapidly escalating cruelty on increasingly submissive prisoners despite the fact there was no obvious authority figure instructing them to do so. These findings suggest that there may be other factors at play, which could lead to the obedience, such as individual characteristics.

The ‘obedience alibi’ revisited:
Although there are many positive consequences of obedience to legitimate authority (e.g. responding to a police officer during an emergency), it is also important to note that legitimacy can serve as the basis for justifying the harming of others.
If people authorise another person to make judgements for them, they no longer feel that their own moral values are relevant  when directed by a legitimate authority figure to engage in immoral actions, people are alarmingly willing to do so. A consequence of this is that people may readily engage in unquestioning obedience to authority, no matter how destructive and immoral the actions are.