Obedience: Social-Psychological factors

Agentic state

• Acting as agent of another.

Autonomous state

• Free to act according to conscience.
• Switching between the two - agentic shift.

Binding factors

• Allow individual to ignore the damaging effects of their obedient behaviour.

Evaluation

Research support

• Blass and Schmit found that people do blame the legitimate authority for the participant's behaviour.

A limited explanation

• Cannot explain why some of Milgram's participants disobeyed or the lack of moral strain in Hofling et al's nurses.

Legitimacy of authority

• Created by hierarchical nature of society.

Destructive authority

• Problems arise, e.g. Hitler.

Evaluation

Cultural differences

• Explains obedience in different cultures because reflects different social hierarchies.

Evaluation extra

• The 'obedience alibi' revisited
• Real-life crimes of obedience