Social Psychology: topic 6 ‘explanations for obedience, LOA and agentic state

Question 1

What is the legitimacy of authority explanation?

Answer 1

• this suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have ‘real’ authority over us
• this authority is justified (legitimate) by the individual’s position of power within a social hierarchy
• people may appear to have power by their appearance and manner & if they wear a uniform (eg the police)
• we are more likely to obey them because we trust and respect them to be well informed and worthy of the power invested in them
• alternatively we may obey them because they have the power to punish us

Question 2

What is the agentic state explanation?

Answer 2

• a mental state where you are more likely to obey an order because you see yourself as having no personal responsibility for your behaviour as you are acting on behalf of an authority

Question 3

What is the agentic shift?

Answer 3

• because we shift from seeing ourselves as responsible for our own actions (the autonomous state) to see ourselves as an agent carrying out another persons wishes (the agentic state)
• this frees us from the demands of our conscience and allows us to obey even a destructive authority figure

Question 4

How was the agentic state presented in Milgram’s study?

Answer 4

• typical responses to being questioned as to why they continued to deliver shocks included ‘i wouldn’t have done it by myself, i was just doing what i was told’