: Explanations for Obedience: Agentic State, Legitimacy of Authority, and Situational Factors

Question 1

Define agentic state

Answer 1

This is when a person believes that someone else will take responsibility for their own actions.

Question 2

Define autonomous state

Answer 2

State in which a person believes they will take responsibility for their own actions

Question 3

What is it called when a person shifts from an autonomous state to an agentic state?

Answer 3

Agentic shift

Question 4

Define agency theory

Answer 4

The idea that people are more likely to obey when they are in the agentic state as they do not believe they will suffer the consequences of those actions.

Question 5

What is legitimacy of authority?

Answer 5

This describes how credible the figure of authority is. People are more likely to obey them if they are seen as credible in terms of being morally good/right,
and legitimate (i.e. legally based or law abiding).

Question 6

Give an example of when legitimate authority has affected a person’s obedience

Answer 6

In Milgram’s study, the people saw the experimenter as legitimate as they knew he was a scientist and therefore is likely to be knowledgeable and responsible - this is called expert authority. This authority was legitimate (justified) because the researcher held the highest position within the social hierarchy of the experimental scenario.

Question 7

What are the 3 situational factors affecting obedience?

Answer 7

1. uniform
2. location
3. proximity

Question 8

How does uniform affect a person’s obedience?

Answer 8

A person is more likely to obey someone wearing a uniform as it gives them a higher status and a greater sense of legitimacy. It was found that obedience was much higher when the experimenter wore a lab coat as opposed to normal clothes. However, demand characteristics were particularly evident in this condition, with even Milgram admitting that many participants could see through this deception.

Question 9

How does location affect a person’s obedience?

Answer 9

A person is more likely to obey someone in a location linked to higher status and
legitimacy. Milgram’s study was conducted at a prestigious American university (Yale), and so obedience was greater than in a variation of the study conducted in a rundown office. This is because the prestigious nature of specific locations demand obedience from participants as well as potentially increasing the trust that they place in the researchers.

Question 10

How does proximity affect a person’s obedience?

Answer 10

A person is more likely to obey when they are less able to see the negative consequences of their actions and are in closer proximity to the authority figure. This is because it increases the pressure to obey and decreases the pressure to resist. In Milgram’s study, obedience was higher when the experimenter was in the same room (62.5%) as the participant as opposed to being in a different room and speaking over the phone i.e. the remote instruction condition (20.5% obedience levels).

Question 11

What are the 3 evaluation points for situational factors affecting obedience?

Answer 11

1. internal validity: a lack of realism
2. historical validity: would the same thing happen today?
3. the power of uniform: research support

Question 12

What is the PEEL paragraph for the point situational factors affecting obedience point; ‘internal validity: a lack of realism’?

Answer 12

P - Holland et al. claimed that participants in psychological studies have learned to distrust experimenters because they know that the true purpose of the study may be disguised
E - Perry et al. discovered that many of Milgram’s pps had been skeptical at the time about whether the shocks were real. One of Milgram’s research assistants, Taketo Murata, had divided the participants into what he called ‘doubters’ (those who believed the shocks were fake) and ‘believers (those who believed they were delivering real shocks to the learner).
E - He found it was the ‘believers’ group that were more likely to disobey the experimenter and give only low intensity shocks.
L - This finding challenges the validity of Milgram’s study and suggests that when faced with the reality of destructive obedience, people are more likely to disobey an authority figure

Question 13

What is the PEEL paragraph for the point situational factors affecting obedience point; ‘historical validity: would the same thing happen today’?

Answer 13

P - we might be tempted to dismiss the relevance of Milgram’s study simply because it was carried out over 50 years ago.
E - however, Blass carried out a statistical analysis of obedience studies carried out between 1961 and 1985. By carrying out a correlational analysis relating each study’s year of publication and the amount of obedience it found, he discovered no relationship whatsoever, i.e. the later studies found no more obedience or less obedience than the other ones conducted earlier.
E - a more recent study found levels of obedience almost identical to those found by Milgram 46 years earlier
L - these findings suggest that Milgram’s findings still appear to apply as much today as they did back in the early 1960s - i.e. there is high historical validity

Question 14

What is the PEEL paragraph for the point situational factors affecting obedience point; ‘the power of uniform: research support’?

Answer 14

P - Durkin and Jeffrey (2000) demonstrated that young children’s understanding of police authority was dominated by visual cues, specifically the presence of a police uniform.
E - using illustrated scenarios, they asked children aged 5-9 years to identify who was able to make an arrest. Options were; a policeman who had changed from his uniform into civilian clothes, a man with a different occupation who had a police uniform temporarily for reasons unconnected with police work, and a man in the uniform of another occupation.
E - children tended to select the man currently wearing the police uniform as being allowed to carry out an arrest. Younger children were more likely to select the non-policeman in police uniform than they were to select the policeman out of his uniform
L - the findings suggest that children’s initial perceptions of authority are dominated by superficial aspects of appearance, which are more easily accessible than socially conferred status

Question 15

What are the 4 evaluation points for agentic state and legitimacy of authority?

Answer 15

1. the agentic state explanation and real life obedience
2. agentic state or just plain cruel?
3. the legitimate authority explanation and real-life obedience
4. the agentic state as loss of personal control

Question 16

What is the PEEL paragraph for the point situational factors affecting obedience point; ‘the agentic state explanation and real life obedience’?

Answer 16

P - Milgram’s claim that people shift back and forth between an autonomous state and an agentic state fails to explain the very gradual and irreversible transition that Lifton (1986) found in his study of German doctors working at Auschwitz
E - Lifton found that these doctors had changed gradually and irreversibly from ordinary medical professionals, concerned only with the welfare of their patients, into men and woman capable of carrying out vile and potentially lethal experiments on the helpless prisoners
E - Staub suggests that rather than agentic shift being responsible for the transition found in many Holocaust predators, it is the experience of carrying out acts of evil over a long time that changes the way in which individuals think and behave

Question 17

What is the PEEL paragraph for the point situational factors affecting obedience point; agentic state or just plain cruel?

Answer 17

P - although Milgram believed that the idea of the agentic state best explained his findings, he did concede other possibilities
E - one common belief among his participants, who had used the situation to express their sadistic impulses.
E - This belief was subsequently given substance by the Stanford Prison Experiment, carried out by Zimbardo and colleagues. Within just a few days, the guards inflicted rapidly escalating cruelty in increasingly submissive prisoners despite the fact there was np obvious authority figure instructing them to do so
L - this suggests that, for some people, obedience might be explained in terms of agentic shift, but for others, ‘obedient behaviour’ may be due to some more fundamental desire to inflict harm on others

Question 18

What is the PEEL paragraph for the point situational factors affecting obedience point; ‘the legitimate authority explanation and real-life obedience’?

Answer 18

P - although there are many positive consequences of obedience to legitimate authority (e.g. responding to a police officer during an emergency), it is also important to note that legitimacy can serve as the basis for justifying the harming of others
E - if people authorize another person to make judgement for them about what is appropriate conduct, they no longer feel that their own moral values are relevant to their conduct. As a result, when directed by a legitimate authority figure to engage in immoral actions, people are alarmingly willing to do so.
L - a consequence of this is that people may readily engage in unquestioning obedience to authority, no matter how destructive and immoral the actions are

Question 19

What is the PEEL paragraph for the point situational factors affecting obedience point; ‘the agentic state as loss of personal control’?

Answer 19

P - Fennis et al. claim that ‘agentic shift’ is more likely in any situation where the individual experiences a reduction in their sense of personal control
E - under such circumstances people may show an increased acceptance of external sources of control to compensate for this
E - Fennis et al. demonstrated that a reduction in personal control resulted not only in greater obedience to authority, but also in bystander apathy (i.e. the tendency to remain passive in the presence of unresponsive others when faced with an emergency), and greater compliance with behavioural requests
L - they concluded that the process of agentic shift is not confined to obedience to authority, but may also extend to other forms of social influence where the individual feels ‘less in control of’ their actions