Obedience: Situational Explanations

What is the 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 i.e. as an agent. This frees us from the demands of our conscience and allows us to obey even a destructive authority figure.

What happens in the agentic state?

• A person acts on behalf of an authority figure/person of higher status

• The actor feels no personal responsibility/does not feel guilty for their action

• It is the opposite of an autonomous state in which people act according to their own principles

• Binding factors reduce the moral strain

What are binding factors?

Aspects of a situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and thus reduce the ‘moral strain’ they are feeling.

• E.g. shifting the responsibility to the victim (‘he was foolish to volunteer’) or denying the damage they were doing to the victims

How did Milgram’s interest in obedience spark?

By the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 for war crimes.

• Eichmann had been in charge of the Nazi death camps and his defence was that he was only obeying orders

• This led to Milgram to propose that obedience to a destructive authority occurs because a person doesn’t take responsibility for their actions, instead they are acting for someone else i.e. that they are an ‘agent’ - someone who acts for or in place of another

  • An agent is not an emotionless puppet, they experience high anxiety (‘moral strain’) when they realise that what they are doing is wrong but feel powerless to disobey

What is the autonomous state?

When a person is acting independently; they’re free to behave according to their own principles and feel a sense of responsibility for their own actions.

What is the agentic shift?

The shift from autonomy to ‘agency’.

• Milgram suggested that this occurs when a person perceives someone else as an authority figure

• The authority figure has greater power because they have a higher position in the social hierarchy

- In most social groups, when one person is in charge, others defer to this person’s legitimate authority and shift from autonomy to agency

What is a strength of the Agentic Theory?

Milgram’s own studies support the role of the agentic state in obedience.

• Most of Milgram’s participants resisted giving the shocks at some point and often asked the experimenter questions about the procedure

• One of these was ‘Who is responsible if Mr Wallace (the learner) is harmed?’ when the experimenter replied ‘I’m responsible’, the participant often went through the procedure quickly with no further objections

• This shows that once participants perceived they were no longer responsible for their own behaviour, they acted more willingly as the experimenters agent, as Milgram suggested

What is a limitation of the Agentic Theory?

It can’t explain the results of Milgram’s variations.

• Birney et al (2024) point out that the extent to which obedience rates variated in different situations suggested that obedience is a product of the situation, rather than simply a ‘natural inclination to obey’’

• The agentic state explanation would predict high levels of obedience regardless of the situation, whereas obedience varied from 0% to 100%

• This suggests that all the characteristics of the situation need to be taken into account (rather than simply the agentic shift in response to orders)

What is legitimacy of authority?

An explanation for obedience which suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us/to issue orders. This authority is justified (legitimate) by the individual’s position of power within a social hierarchy.

How is legitimacy of authority an explanation for obedience?

• A person recognises their own and other’s position in a social hierarchy

• Leading to recognising of the authority figure’s right to issue a demand

• Legitimacy is increased by visible symbols of authority e.g. uniform

• Legitimacy of setting, order, system

What is a consequence of legitimate authority?

Some people are granted the power to punish others; we generally agree that the police and courts have the power to punish wrongdoers. So, we are willing to give up some of our independence and to hand control of our behaviour over to people we trust to exercise their authority appropriately. We learn acceptance of legitimate authority from childhood, from parents initially and then teachers and adults generally.

What is meant by destructive authority?

When legitimate authority is used to order harmful or cruel behaviour (e.g. Hitler and Stalin). This was shown in Milgram’s study, where participants obeyed instructions that went against their conscience because they trusted the authority figure, felt less responsible and were gradually drawn into continuing.

What is a strength of the legitimacy explanation?

It’s useful account of cultural differences in obedience.

• Many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people are obedient to authority; for example, Kilham and Mann (1974) found that only 16% of Australian women went all the way up to 450 volts in a Milgram-style study. However, Mantell (1971) found a very different figure for German participants - 85%

• This shows that in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals. This reflects the way that different societies are structured and the differences in how children are raised to perceive authority figures

What is a limitation of the legitimacy explanation?

It can’t explain instances of disobedience in a hierarchy where the legitimacy of authority is clear and accepted.

• This includes the nurses in Rank and Jacobson’s study where most were disobedient despite working in a rigidly hierarchal authority structure. Also, a significant minority of Milgram’s participants disobeyed despite recognising the experimenters scientific authority

• This suggests that some people may be more (or less) obedient than others. It is possible that innate tendencies to obey or disobey have a greater influence on behaviour than the legitimacy of an authority figure