The Agentic State and Legitimacy of Authority

Legitimate authority

Agentic state

A03

First condition: the perception of an authority figure

Milgram (1974): many situations do usually have an authority figure

If demands are dangerous they must occur within an institute to seem legitimate

Participants see one lab as competent as the other as long as it’s a scientific lab

Obedient individuals see themselves as not being responsible for their actions

The individual acts as an agent carrying out another person’s wishes.

After Milgram’s experiment, participants were interviewed and asked why they obeyed, a typical answer was “I wouldn’t have do it by myself, I was just doing what I was told”

This allows the person to feel guilt free

Lifton (1986)

Study of doctors at Auschwitz found the agentic state was a gradual and irreversible change

Staub (1989)

The agentic shift doesn't change the person, it's the acts they carry out

Fennis and Aarts (2012)

Tarnow (2000)

Agentic shift is more likely in any situation where the individual has lost their sense of personal control

In aircraft accidents between 1978-90, Tarnow found an excessive dependence on the captain's authority