Agentic state & Legitmate authority: Social psychological explanation affecting obedience

Agentic state

• Milgram believed that in cases of obedience to destructive authority, individuals believe they are acting on behalf of someone else and that they are not responsible for their actions. In order words they act as an agent and complete the orders under a mental state in which they feel no sense of responsibility or guilt for their behaviours. This is also known as the agentic state. The individual might feel some moral strain or anxiety when an order goes against their conscience but are powerless to disobey.

• Most of the time individual are in the autonomous state, a state of independence in which they have the free will to choose how to behave and take full responsibility for their actions. However, when people are in the presence of perceived authority figure, they make a change from being autonomous to taking on the agentic state. This is what Milgram named an agentic state.

• But why do people stay in this agentic state even though in reality they want to disobey? Milgram said that there are always aspects of the situation which bind us to the task and allow us to block out moral strain we are experiencing. These are called binding factors. There are a number of strategies we use to do this, including feeling obliged/social etiquette (e.g. not wanting to appear rude by breaking a commitment) and feeling that it is the victim’s fault for volunteering.

Stage of Agentic state

1. Autonomous state → take responsibility for

2. Order given by authority

3. experience moral strain

4. shift into agentic state → others are responsible

5. Binding factors lower moral strain and keep you in agentic state (pps fault etiquette)

Legitimate Authority

• In order to act in an agentic state, the person we are obeying must be perceived to have legitimate authority.

• Society is structured in a hierarchy with those at the top holding positions of authority such as police officers, parents, teachers. As society dictates their position, their authority is seen to be legitimate (or justified) and we accept that they can exert their power in order to keep society in order.

• We are socialised from an early age to accept that there are legitimate authority figures in society and to understand that some of these figures have the power to punish us. As a result we are willing to trust people in these positions to use their authority appropriately.

Legitimate authority → Kerman and Hamilton (1989) suggest 3 main factors explain legitimate obedience.

1. Legitimacy of the system concerns the extent to which the ‘body’ is legitimate source for authority

2. Legitimacy of authority within the system

3. Legitimacy of demands/orders given is the power individuals hold to give orders because of their positions in the system

This refers to the extent to which the order is perceived to be a legitimate area for the authority figure

However, certain powerful figures have exploited their legitimate authority in a destructive way. Hitler is a prime example of a charismatic leader who used his legitimate authority to order people lower down in the social hierarchy to believe in cruel, evil and torturous ways.

AO3: +Research support

Blass and Schmitt (2001) showed a video of the Milgram study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the learner, Mr Wallace. They blamed the ‘experimenter’ rather than the pps, arguing he had responsibility due to his legitimate authority and expertise.

This supports the agentic state/legitimate authority explanation. Agentic state → pps shift into an agentic state by blaming the ‘experimenter’ (Mr Wallace) instead of the victim because they feel the experimenter is the authority (higher up in hierarchy’s) so they blame them.

AO3: -Cultural Differences

Studies show that countries differ in the degree in which people are traditionally obedient to authority. Kilman and Mann (1974) replicated Milgram procedures in Australia and found that only 16% of pps went to the top of the voltage scale. On the other hand, Mantell (1971) found 85% of German pps delivered the maximum shock.

This supports the legitimate authority explanation. This is because some cultures are more respectful of authority than others e.g. Germany are very respectful, whereas Australia are more rebellious

AO3: +Real life research support

Tarnow provided support for the power of legitimate authority studying aviation accidents. He studied data from all serious accidents in the USA between 1978 and 1990. He found excessive dependence on the captain’s authority and expertise. Even when the captain was taking risks and flight crew were aware of this they still did not question the legitimate authority of the captain.

This supports the legitimate authority explanation. This is due to the received authority of the captain. The hierarchy = captain at the top. So flight attendant wouldn’t question them as they have more power.

AO3: - The agentic state and historical events

Milgrams claim that people shift back and forth between autonomous and agentic states fails to explain the gradual, irreversible transition that Lifton (1986) found in his study of German doctors working at the Aushwitz. He found these doctors changed from ordinary, caring medical professionals, to being capable of carrying out vile, lethal experiments on innocent people.

This challenges the agentic state explanation. Milgram said that we shift in and out of autonomous state, however, it doesnt explain why the doctors didn’t

AO3: -A limited explanation

The agentic shift doesnt explain many research findings. It does not explain why some of the pps refused to obey in Milgram’s study. It also does not explain the findings in Hofling’s study. The agentic shift would predict that, as the nurses handed over responsibility to the doctor, they should have shown high levels of anxiety as they understood their role in the destructive process. This was not the case.

This challenges the agentic state explanation. As the agentic state believe we all experience the shift - but same people do not so the agentic shift explanations over generalises.