Obedience - Social Psychological Factors

Agentic State:Agentic state is a mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure i.e. as their agent. This frees us from the demands of our consciences and allows us to obey even a destructive authority figure.Milgram's proposed that obedience to destructive authority occurs because a person does not take responsibility. Instead they believe they are acting for someone else. This is called agentic state. People in agentic state experience high anxiety when they realise what they are doing is wrong, but feel powerless to disobey.

Autonomous State:Autonomy means to be independent or free. A person in autonomous state is free to behave according to their own principles and therefore feels a sense of responsibility for their own actions. The shift from autonomy to agency is called agentic shift. Milgram suggested that this occurs when a person perceives someone else as a figure of authority. This other person has greater power because of their position in a social hierarchy. In most social groups when one person is in charge, others defer to this person and shift from autonomy to agency. Blass and Schmitt showed students a film of Milgram's study and asked them to identify who they thought was responsible for the harm to the learner. The students blamed the experimenter rather than the participant. The students also indicated that the responsibility was due to legitimate authority (the experimenter) but also due to expert authority (because he was a scientist). This supports Milgram's explanation The agentic shift doesn't explain many of the research findings. It does not explain why some of the participants did not obey - humans are social animals and involved in social hierarchies and therefore should all obey.

Legitimacy of Authority:Most societies are structured in a hierarchical way. This means that people in certain positions hold authority over the rest of us e.g. teachers, police. The power they have is legitimate in the sense that it is agreed by society. Authority figures have to be allowed to exercise social power over others to allow society to function smoothly. One of the consequences of this legitimacy of authority, is that some people are granted the power to punish others. People are willing to give up their independence and hand control of their behaviour over to people they trust to exercise their authority appropriately. Destructive Authority:Charismatic and powerful leaders (e.g. Hitler) can use their legitimate authority powers for destructive purposes, ordering people to behave in ways that are callous, cruel, stupid and dangerous. Destructive authrority was very clearly on show in Milgram's study when the experimenter used prods to order participants to behave in ways that went against their consciencesLegitimacy of authority is a useful account of cultural differences in obedience. Many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people are traditionally obedient to authority. For example, Kilharn and Mann replicated Milgram's study in Australia and found that only 16% of participants went all the way to the top voltage. Mantell replicated it in Germany and found that 85% of participants went to the top voltage. 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. Supportive findings increase the validity of the explanation.