obedience: social - psychological factors

obedience: social - psychological factors

1. agentic state

   • Eichmann triad for war crimes and said he was just obeying orders
     • Milgram - a person does not take responsibility for their actions
   • autonomous state
     • opposite of agentic state
       • free to behave how they want and have responsibility over their actions
   • agentic shift
     • the move from autonomous state to agentic
       • when a person sees someone as a figure of authority
         • greater power due to social hierarchy
   • binding factors
     • many of Milgram's participants wanted to quit but couldn't
       • binding factors - allow the person to ignore or minimise damage they are making
         • e.g. shifting responsibility to the victim - they shouldn't have applied
           • or denying that they were causing any damage

2. legitimacy of authority

   • societies have a hierarchy
     • teachers police nightclub bouncers all have authority in some situations
       • the authority is legitimate as it is agreed by society
   • consequences
     • some people have the power to punish others
       • we will follow them as they have authority
         • we learn it from parents and teachers
   • destructive authority
     • problems can occur when legitimate authority becomes destructive
       • e.g. Hitler
         • use their authority to order cruel things
           • Milgram supports this by using prods in his experiment - people went against their conscience

3. evaluation - agentic shift

   • research support
     • Blass & Schmitt
       • students shown Milgram's study and asked to identify who was responsible
         • students said experimenter
           • the experimenter was top of the hierarchy and had expert authority (scientist)
   • limited explanation
     • doesn't say why some people didn't obey
       • in Hofling's nurse study not all obeyed or showed signs of distress when they should

4. evaluation - legitimacy of authority

   • cultural differences
     • strength - countries differ to how obedient they are
       • Kilham & Mann
         • replicated study in Australia - 16% went all the way
       • Mantell
         • replicated in Germany - 85% went all the way
     • it shows how different societies are structured & how children see authority figures
     • good validity

5. evaluation +

   • obedience alibi
     • limitation of agentic state
       • Nazis behaviour cannot be explained by authority and agentic shift
         • e.g. Mandell found
           • a group of German police shot civilians even thought they were not directly told to do so
   • real life crimes of obedience
     • strength of legitimacy of authority
       • help to explain war crimes
         • Kelman & Hamilton
           • the My Lai massacre can be understood in terms of the power of hierarchy of the US army - only following orders