Situational Explanations Flashcards
(9 cards)
Agentic state
When a person believes they are acting for someone else- an agent. Don’t take responsibility
Stanley Milgram’s initial interest in obedience was sparked by the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 for war crimes. Eichmann had been in charge of the Nazi death camps and his defence was that he was only obeying orders. This led Milgram to propose that obedience to destructive authority occurs because a person does not take responsibility. Instead they believe they are acting for someone else, i.e. that they are an ‘agent. An ‘agent is someone who acts for or in place of another.
An agent is not an unfeeling puppet - they experience high anxiety (moral strain) when they realise that what they are doing is wrong, but feel powerless to disobey.
Autonomous state
Opposite of agentic state. Independent. Free to behave according to their own principle and feels a sense of responsibility for their actions. Shift from autonomy to ‘agency’ is called the agentic shift.
Milgram (1974) suggested that this occurs when a person perceives someone else as an authority figure. The authority figure has greater power because they have a higher position in a social hierarchy. In most social groups, when one person is in charge others defer to the legitimate authority (see below) of this person and shift from autonomy to agency.
Binding factors
Factors of the situation which reduce our moral strain, such as reassuring ourselves it is not our responsibility or justifying our actions by saying the victim was ‘asking for it’.Or denying the damage they were doing to the victim.Minimise damaging effect of their behaviour.
Legitimacy of authority (new section)
Taught from early age who is at top of social hierarchy. E.g. teachers, police have legitimate authority. We trust them to exert their power over us appropriately and we are willing to give up our independence if they do so.
Most societies are structured in a hierarchical way. This means that people in certain positions hold authority over the rest of us. For example, parents, teachers, police officers, nightclub bouncers… all have authority over us at times. The authority they wield is legitimate in the sense that it is agreed by society. Most of us accept that authority figures have to be allowed to exercise social power over others because this allows society to function smoothly.
One of the consequences of this legitimacy of authority is that some people are granted the power to punish others. We generally agree that the police and courts have the power to punish wrongdoers. So we are willing to give up some of our independence and to hand control of our behaviour over to people we trust to exercise their authority appropriately. We learn acceptance of legitimate authority from childhood, from parents initially and then teachers and adults generally.
Destructive authority
Problems arise when legitimate authority becomes destructive. Historical leaders have sometimes used their power in destructive ways, ordering people to behave in ways that are cruel and dangerous. Destructive authority was in milgrams study, when the experimenter used prods to behave in ways that went against their consciences.
Strength- agentic state- research support
One strength is that Milgram’s own studies support the role of the agentic state in obedience.
Most of Milgram’s participants resisted giving the shocks at some point, and often asked the Experimenter questions about the procedure. One of these was ‘Who is responsible if Mr Wallace (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 Experimenter’s agent, as Milgram suggested.
Limitation- agentic state- limited explanation
Agentic shift doesn’t explain many research findings about obedience. E.g. findings of Rank and Jacobson (1977) study. 16/18 nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer a lethal dose of a drug to a patient. Nurses remained autonomous despite doctor authority figure.
Strength- legitimacy- cultural differences
Legitimacy explanation is a useful account for cultural differences in obedience.
Many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people are obedient to authority . 16% of Australian women went all the way up to 450 V, Germans- 85%. Shows that in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals. Reflects the way children are raised in different cultures to perceive authority figures.
Limitation- legitimacy- can’t explain all disobedience
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 Rank and Jacobson’s study (above). Most of them were disobedient despite working in a rigidly hierarchical authority structure. Also, a significant minority of Milgram’s participants disobeyed despite recognising the Experimenter’s scientific authority.
This suggests that some people may just be more (or less) obedient than others (see next spread). It is possible that innate tendencies to obey or disobey have a greater influence on behaviour than the legitimacy of an authority figure.
