Obedience Social Psychological

Agentic State

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

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. This authority is justified (legitimate) by the individual's position of power within a social hierarchy.

Autonomous state

"Autonomy' means to be independent or free. So a person in an autonomous state is free to behave according to their own principles and therefore feels a sense of responsibility for their own actions.

The shift from autonomy to 'agency' is called the agentic shift. Milgram (1974) suggested that this occurs when a person perceives someone else as a figure of authority.

Binding factors

aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and thus reduce the 'moral strain' they are feeling. Milgram proposed a number of strategies that the individual uses, such as shifting the responsibility to the victim ('he was foolish to volunteer') or denying the damage they were doing to the victims.

Strength - Research Support

Blass and Schmitt (2001) showed a film of Milgram's study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the learner, Mr. Wallace. The students blamed the 'experimenter' rather than the participant. The students also indicated that the responsibility was due to legitimate authority (the 'experimenter' was top of the hierarchy and therefore had legitimate authority but also due to expert authority (because he was a scientist).