obedience: social - psychological factors

agentic state
1. Eichmann triad for war crimes and said he was just obeying orders
  1. Milgram - a person does not take responsibility for their actions
2. autonomous state
  1. opposite of agentic state
    1. free to behave how they want and have responsibility over their actions
3. agentic shift
  1. the move from autonomous state to agentic
    1. when a person sees someone as a figure of authority
      1. greater power due to social hierarchy
4. binding factors
  1. many of Milgram's participants wanted to quit but couldn't
    1. binding factors - allow the person to ignore or minimise damage they are making
      1. e.g. shifting responsibility to the victim - they shouldn't have applied
        or denying that they were causing any damage
legitimacy of authority
1. societies have a hierarchy
  1. teachers police nightclub bouncers all have authority in some situations
    1. the authority is legitimate as it is agreed by society
2. consequences
  1. some people have the power to punish others
    1. we will follow them as they have authority
      1. we learn it from parents and teachers
3. destructive authority
  1. problems can occur when legitimate authority becomes destructive
    1. e.g. Hitler
      1. use their authority to order cruel things
        Milgram supports this by using prods in his experiment - people went against their conscience
evaluation - agentic shift
1. research support
  1. Blass & Schmitt
    1. students shown Milgram's study and asked to identify who was responsible
      1. students said experimenter
        the experimenter was top of the hierarchy and had expert authority (scientist)
2. limited explanation
  1. doesn't say why some people didn't obey
    1. in Hofling's nurse study not all obeyed or showed signs of distress when they should
evaluation - legitimacy of authority
1. cultural differences
  1. strength - countries differ to how obedient they are
    1. Kilham & Mann
      1. replicated study in Australia - 16% went all the way
    2. Mantell
      1. replicated in Germany - 85% went all the way
  2. it shows how different societies are structured & how children see authority figures
  3. good validity
evaluation +
1. obedience alibi
  1. limitation of agentic state
    1. Nazis behaviour cannot be explained by authority and agentic shift
      1. e.g. Mandell found
        a group of German police shot civilians even thought they were not directly told to do so
2. real life crimes of obedience
  1. strength of legitimacy of authority
    1. help to explain war crimes
      1. Kelman & Hamilton
        the My Lai massacre can be understood in terms of the power of hierarchy of the US army - only following orders

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obedience: social - psychological factors

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	Created by Daisy U about 8 years ago