obedience:social-psychological factors
- Created by: IvyVega
- Created on: 22-02-18 17:48
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- Obedience: Social-psychological factors
- Explanation 1: agentic state
- An agentic state occurs when we act on behalf of another person.
- Milgram proposed that obedience to destructive authority occurs because a person becomes an agent
- someone who acts for or in place of another
- in an agentic state a person feels no personal responsibility for their actions.
- Milgram proposed that obedience to destructive authority occurs because a person becomes an agent
- The opposite of an agentic state is an autonomous state
- Autonomy means to be independent or free
- So a person in an autonomous state behaves according to their own principles
- And feels responsible for their own actions
- Agentic shift occurs when a person defers to the authority figure
- the shift from autonomy to being an agent is called the agentic shift
- 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 reduce the moral strain of obeying immoral orders.
- binding factors are aspects of a situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and reduce the moral strain they feel
- Milgram proposed a number of strategies the individual uses.
- such as shifting the responsibility to the victims or denying the damage they are doing to victims
- An agentic state occurs when we act on behalf of another person.
- Explanation 2: legitimacy of authority
- we obey people at the top of a social hierarchy
- Most societies are structured hierarchically.
- people in certain positions hold authority over the rest of us.
- parents, teachers, police officers, nightclub bouncers, all have some kind of authority over us at times
- authorities have legitimacy through society's agreement
- the authority they wield is legitimate in the sense that it is agreed by society
- most of us accept that authority figures should exercise social power over others because this allows society to function smoothly
- we hand control of our behaviour over to authority figures due to trust and through upbringing
- one consequence of legitimate authority 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
- we learned to accept authority during childhood from parents and teachers
- charismatic leaders use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes
- history has too often shown that leaders use legitimate authority destructively, ordering people to behave in callous, cruel, dangerous and stupid ways.
- we obey people at the top of a social hierarchy
- Explanation 1: agentic state
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