Agency Theory Flashcards
What is the autonomous state?
When an individual directs their own behaviour, and takes responsibility for their actions - they have the power and their own conscience is in control.
What is the agentic state?
When an individual allows an authority figure to direct their behaviour, and they assume that responsibility passes to that person. Their own consciences aren’t in control, acting as agents.
What is moral strain?
Carrying out an order for an authority figure that goes against your conscience. A person feels uncomfortable because of this.
Examples of moral strain?
Milgram’s participants were seen to visibly shake when asked to adminster shocks. Some felt conflict between the need of the victim and the authority figure.
How is moral strain relieved?
When shifting to the agentic state, moral strain is relieved as the responsibility of the consequences is passed onto the person giving the orders.
A weakness is that the theory does not take into account dispositional reasons for obedience such as personality. Some participants did not obey him which suggests
there may be other factors involved in why people do or do not obey and the theory may therefore be incomplete and reductionist.
The findings of the variations on Milgram’s study reinforce the theory, eg, exp 7, when the experimenter wasn’t in the room, they didn’t obey. This is because
the less the participants were agents, the less they obeyed, therefore the theory explains the different levels of obedience.
The theory is more of a description than an explanation therefore the theory is
reductionist.
Has application to real life..
My Lai Massacre
Holocaust
Gupta (1983) supports Milgram’s agency theory as…
> 27.6% obedient males accepted responsibility compared to 49.4% who were not obedient
52% placed responsibility on the experimenter
Hofling et al (1966) staged a hospital setting where a fake doctor phoned a nurse and asked them to administer a drug to a patient that was illegal, 21/22 obeyed because
they displaced their personal responsibility onto the doctor and justified their behaviour as being as a result of the hierachy of authority at the hospital. (SUPPORTS)
Alternative theory - Social Power Theory, it believes that different tyoes of power in situations affect obedience such as
legitimate power, reward power, coercive power (potential of punishment), expert power, referent power (those who can win people over) Milgram’s experimenter had many of these
