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alternative explanations for obedience - Coggle Diagram
alternative explanations for obedience
legitimacy of authority
we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. this authority is justified by the individuals position of power within a social hierarchy
most societies are structured in a hierarchical way meaning people in certain positions hold authority over us eg. parents, teachers, police etc
the authority they wield is legitimate as it is agreed by society - it allows society to function smoothly
a consequence of this is that some people are granted the power to punish others. we give up some of our independence to people we trust to exercise their authority appropriately.
history has shown that leaders (eg Hitler and Stalin) use legitimate authority destructively, ordering people to behave in callous, dangerous ways
evaluating legitimacy of authority
strength - one strength is that it can help explain real life examples. For example, the My Lai massacre can be explained as the soldiers followed orders (to conduct a 'search and destroy' mission) from figures of authority in the army.
strength - it can help explain cultural differences. Kilham and Mann found in Australia that only 16% of participants went all the way to the top of the voltage scale and Mantell in Germany found that 85% of participants went all the way to the top of the voltage scale. In different cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience for individuals. This reflects the different ways that societies are structured and how children are raised to perceive authority
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. this frees us from the demands of our consciences and allows us to obey, even destructive, authority figures.
Milgram proposed that obedience to a destructive authority occurs because a person becomes an agent.
the opposite of an agentic state is an autonomous state where a person behaves according to their own principles and feels responsibility for their own actions
the shift from autonomy to being an agent is the agentic shift and Milgram suggested that this occurs when we perceive someone else as an authority figure, this person has power because of their position in a social hierarchy.
binding factors are aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour, reducing the moral strain. an example would be shifting the responsibility to the victim or denying the damage being done
binding factors keep a person in a agentic state
evaluating agentic state
strength - one strength is that it is supported by Milgram's research. 65% of the participants shocked all the way to 450 volts and 0% stopped before 300 volts. Milgram suggested that the participants perceived the man in the white coat as an authority figure who has power due to the social hierarchy, he was the lead experimenter/scientist. the participants therefore obeyed because they shifted from an autonomous to an agentic state
limitation - a limitation is that it doesn't explain many of the findings in obedience research. 12.5% of participants in Milgram's research didn't obey. All humans are social animals in social hierarchies, therefore all participants should have obeyed the order. this shows that agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience. the behaviour of the nurses in Hoffling's study did not show anxiety when shifting from an autonomous to agentic state.
limitation - it cannot account for all the behaviour of the Nazi's in WW2. Mandel described one incident involving German Reserve Police Battalion 101 where men obeyed orders to shoot civilians in a small town. these were not direct orders and had the option to be assigned to other duties. this goes against the agentic state idea because they weren't following any orders so they weren't acting as an agent of an authority figure, they chose to do this.