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Obedience (social - psychological factors) - Coggle Diagram
Obedience (social - psychological factors)
agentic state:
a mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviours because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure. this frees us from our consciences.
Milgram learnt from a study that people often do more destructive actions if they know the consequences won't fall blame on them eg. soldiers in nazi germany
an agent is someone who acts for in place of someone, not an unfeeling puppet, expeiernce high anxiety (moral stress) when they realise that what they are doing is wrong, but feel powerless to disobey
autonomous state:
opposite of being in an agentic state is being in an autonomous state
free to behave according to their own principles and therefore feel a sense of responsiblilty for their actions.
the shift from autonomy to agency is called the agentic shift
Milgram (1974) suggested this occurs when a person percived someone else as a figure of authority
this other person has greater power becasue 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
binding factors:
aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaginf effect of their behaviour and thus reduce the 'moral strain' they are feeling
milgram raised the question of why the individual remains in this agentic state
Milgram observed that many of his participants spoke as if they wanted to quit but seemed unable to do so
milgram proposed a number of strategies that the individual uses, such as shifting the responsibility to the victim or denying the damage they were doing to the victims
legitimacy of authority
: most societies are structured in a hirearchiak way, this means people in certain positions hold authority over the rest of us
the authority figures have to be allowed to excersise social powwer over others because this allows society to function smoothly
consequences of this legitimacy of authority is that some people are granted the power to punish others. most of us accept that the police and courts have the poewer to punish wrongdoers
so we are willing to give up some of our independence and to hand control of our behaviour over to people we trust to exersice their authority appropriately
we learn acceptance of legitimate authority from childhood, of course, from parents initially and then teachers and adults generally
destuctive authority
however, problems arise when legitimate authority becomes destructive
history has too often showsn that charismatic and powerful leaders can use their legitimate power for destructive purposes, ordering people to behave in ways that are callous, cruel, stupid and dangerous
destructive authority was very clearly on show in Milgram's study when the experimenter used prods to order participants to behave in ways that went against the conscience
evaulation
strength
: research support
Blass and Schmitt (2001) showed a film of milgram's study to students and asked then to identify who they felt 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 but also due to expert authority
in other wordsthey recognised legitmate authority as the cuase of obedience
supporting evidence
limitation:
limited explanation
the agentic shift doesnt explain many of the research findings. for example it doesnt explain why some of the participants did not obey
the agentic shift explanation also does not explain the findings from Hofling et al's study. the agentic shift explanation predicts that, as the nurses handed over reponsibilty to the doctor, they should have shown levels of anxiety similar to MIlgram's participants, as they understood their role in a destructive process, not the case
this suggests that, at best, agents shift can only account for some situations of obedience
strength
: cultural diferences
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, Kiham and Mann (1974) replicated Milgram's procedure in Austrailia and found that only 16% of their participants went all the way to the top of the voltage scale
on the other hand, Mantell (1971) found a very different figure for German participants 85%
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
such supportive findings from cross-cultural research increase the validity of the explanation