Situational Explanations of Obedience

Agentic state

• A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour

• Because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure - such as their agent

• This frees us from the demands of our consciences and allows us to obey even a destructive authority figure

Agentic state - autonomous state

• The opposite of being in an agentic state

• ‘Autonomy’ - to be independent and free

• Someone in an autonomous state is free to behave according to their morals and is responsible for their actions

• Shift from ‘autonomy’ to ‘agency’ is agentic shift

• Milgram (1974) suggested this shift occurs when a person perceives someone else as an authority figure with a higher social status

• In most social groups, when one person is in charge others defer to the legitimate authority of this person and undergo an agentic shift

Agentic state - binding factors

• Milgram observed that many of his participants said they wanted to stop but seemed powerless to do so

• Led to the question of why did they remain in an agentic state

• Answer is binding factors - aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and reduce the ‘moral strain’ they are feeling

• Some of Milgram’s participants said that the learners were ‘foolish to volunteer’ to deny the damage they were doing to the victims

Legitimacy of authority

• An explanation for obedience which suggests we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us

• This authority is legitimate due to the individual’s position of power within a social hierarchy

• Most of us accept that authority figures are allowed to exercise social power over others due to this allowing society to function smoothly

Legitimacy of authority - consequences and acceptance

• Some people are granted the power to punish others

• Police and courts have the power to punish wrongdoers

• Meaning we are willing to give up some of our independence and to hand control of our behaviour to people we trust to exercise authority appropriately

• We learn acceptance of legitimate authority from childhood

Legitimacy of authority - destructive authority

• Problems arise when legitimate authority becomes destructive

• I.e in history when powerful leaders (such as Hitler and Stalin) use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes

• Destructive authority was obvious in Milgram’s study, when the Experimenter used prods to order participants to behave in ways that went against their consciences