Social Psychology: Explanations of Why People Obey

Question 1

Name the 4 explanations of Why people Obey

Answer 1

> Agentic shift
Gradual Commitment
The role of buffers
Justifying Obedience`

Question 2

Describe Agentic Shift

Answer 2

The Agentic shift is the condition a person is when he sees himself as an agent for carrying out another person’s wishes. Milgram argued that people shift back and forth between an Agentic state and an autonomous state, the latter referring to the state a person is in when he sees himself acting on his own.

Question 3

Describe Gradual Commitment

Answer 3

As participants have already given lower-level shocks it becomes hard to resist the experimenter’s demands to increase the shock levels. Due to their commitment to their course of action it became difficult for the participants to change their minds.

Question 4

Describe the Role of Buffers

Answer 4

The teacher was protected (buffered from having to see his ‘victim’ the learner, and the results of the electric shocks. When the learner was in the same room, this buffering effect was reduced, as was the tendency to obey the commands of the experimenter and therefore the overall levels of obedience.

Question 5

Describe Justifying Obedience

Answer 5

When participants tried to complain and protest, they were given a prod e.g. “ because the experiment requires it” (good for science). By offering an ideology people appear willing to surrender their autonomy in the belief that they are serving a justifiable cause.