Situational Explanations

Question 1

What is the agentic state?

Answer 1

• the agentic state was proposed by Milgram after seeing the trial for Adolf Eichmann for his war crimes as a Nazi
• the agentic state is a mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour as we are acting as an ‘agent’ for someone else, agents still feel moral strain but feel they have no power to disobey
• the autonomous state is the opposite where we feel independent and responsible for our actions
• the agentic shift is the shift between the 2 states and Milgram proposed that this happens when we perceive an authority figure due to the social hierarchy
• binding factors are factors experienced while in the agentic state that reduce moral strain and allow someone to maintain in that state

Question 2

What is a strength and limitation of the agentic state as a situational explanation for obedience?

Answer 2

• strength of research support from Milgram’s study as when the teacher is told that the responsibility of the learner’s wellbeing is on the experimenter they found it much easier to continue on with no further questions
• limitation of a limited explanation as it doesn’t explain all cases of obedience like Rank and Jacobson’s nurses and doctors experiment where the nurses still didn’t obey despite authority figure being present

Question 3

What is legitimacy of authority?

Answer 3

• a social authority hierarchy is legitimate and accepted as most of us agree on who has power over who in society e.g doctors, teachers and police officers
• exercising social power can be good to help society function smoothly however it can also lead to granting people the power to punish individuals which can be like the justice system or can lead to destructive authority
• destructive authority is where the authority is used for destructive purposes e.g Hitler and Stalin and was present from the experimenter in Milgram’s study when he prods participants to behave in ways that went against their conscience

Question 4

What is a strength and limitation of legitimacy of authority as an explanation for obedience?

Answer 4

• strength that it explains cultural differences as in different Milgram replication studies, there were different results obtained and this can be evidence of different cultures having different authority hierarchies - generalisable and reliable
• limitation that it can’t explain all disobedience as in Rank and Jacobson’s nurses study most nurses disobeyed despite the doctors having clear authority over them - lacking in reliability