SITUATIONAL EXPLANATIONS

~AGENTIC STATE~

A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour, because we believe we are acting on behalf of an authority figure. This frees us from the demand of our conscience.

  • Milgram was interested in obedience because of the trial of Adolf Eichmann.

  • Eichmann was in charge of Nazi camps, and his defence was that he was simply obeying orders.

Autonomous State → the opposite of an agentic state.

  • Behave as they want and feel responsibility

  • The shift from autonomy to agency is called the ‘agentic shift’ - this occurs when a person perceives someone else as an authority figure

  • The authority has greater power as they are higher in a social hierarchy

Binding Factors → when aspects of the situation mean the individual is able to take away their own ‘moral strain’ and ignore their damaging behaviour

EVALUATION OF AGENTIC STATE

Research Support

→ RESEARCH SUPPORT

  • One strength is that Milgram’s own studies support the role of the agentic state in obedience.

  • For example, most of Milgram’s participants resisted giving the shocks at some point and often asked the experimenter questions about the procedure.

  • One of these participants asked ‘Who is responsible if (the learner) is harmed?’ When the experimenter replied ‘I’m responsible’ the participants 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 easily as the experimenters agent, as Milgram suggested.

Conflicting Evidence

→ A LIMITED EXPLANATION

  • One limitation is that the agentic shift doesn’t explain many research findings about obedience.

  • For example, it does not explain the finding of the study where 16 out of 18 nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to admit an excessive drug dose to a patient.

  • This was despite the doctor being an obvious authority figure, but almost all nurses remain autonomous, as did many of Milgram’s participants.

  • This suggests that, at best, the agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience.

~LEGITIMACY OF AUTHORITY~

Suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. This authority is justified by an individual’s position of power within a social hierarchy.

  • Legitimacy is increased by visible symbols of authority (e.g. Uniform)

  • Positions of power have been agreed by society, and most people accept this

Destructive Authority → when legitimate authority becomes destructive (e.g. Hitler)

EVALUATION OF LEGITIMACY OF AUTHORITY

Research Support

→ EXPLAINS CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

  • One strength of the legitimacy explanation is that it is a 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, a study found that only 16% of Australian women deliver shocks up to 450V, whereas a different study found that it was 85% for German participants.

  • 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 ways that different societies are structured and how children are raised to perceive authority figures.

Conflicting Evidence

→ CANNOT EXPLAIN ALL (DIS)OBEDIENCE

  • One limitation is that legitimacy cannot explain instances of disobedience in a hierarchy where the legitimacy of authority is clear and accepted.

  • This includes the nurses in the previously mentioned study, most of whom were disobedient despite working in a rigidly hierarchy authority structure.

  • Furthermore, a significant minority of Milgram’s participants disobeyed despite recognising the experimenters scientific authority.

  • This suggests that some people may just be more or less obedient than others (an innate tendency)