| what is agency theory | theory that we are taught from childhood to obey rules set by society. When a person is acting under an authority figure and carrying out their orders as their ‘agent’. This prevents them from taking responsibility for their actions |
| Autonomous state | when an individual acts independently. |
| what binds individuals to agentic stage | binding factors, like fear of punishment |
| agentic shift | shift from autonomous to agentic state |
| legitimate authority figure | He believed that individuals were more likely to obey someone with high status/high position in the social hierarchy. People will obey these authority figures in fear of punishment, the figure can be someone who can enforce law like the police. |
| Destructive obedience | when issues occur because of an authority figure using their power for destructive purposes. |
| Variations of Miligrams Study | - someone else administered the shock (agentic state), obedience rate was 92%
- experiment took place in a run down building, obedience rate when down to 47%
- teacher and learner were the same room, the proximity to the learner caused rate to go down to 40%
- the lack of proximity with authority figure caused rate to drop to 20%
- when the authority figure was replaced with a peer in normal clothes, also caused rate to go to 20% |
| Obedience can depend on cultures | - Kilham and Mann found that Australia's obedience rate was much lower. 40% in men and 16% of females
- Germany was found to have 85% obedience rate |
| Uniform is a situational variable for obedience | - People wearing guard uniform saw high obedience rates (89%)
- While those dressed as civilians only saw 33% obedience rate |
