Outline and Evaluate explanations of obedience
Outline & Evaluate one or more Explanations of Why People Obey.
There are many reasons as to why people obey which have been justified gradually over several decades.
Milgram (1974) argued the fact that in an obedience situation, people tend to pass all sense of responsibility onto the authoritative figure. Milgram said that people are in an autonomous state when taking their responsibility but move into an agentic state when passing this responsibility to an authoritative figure; this shift in state of mind is called an agentic shift. For example in Milgram shock experiment (1963), many participants reported after they were debriefed that they knew delivering the shocks was wrong but they felt that the experimenter was to be held responsible and not them. Similar to at the Nuremberg trials as many Nazi soldiers defended their actions saying they were just following orders so it was not their fault.
Another explanation to why people obey being this idea of Gradual commitment, which has a snowball effect of starting of small and therefore making it easier to progress to something more extreme. If we look back at Milgram’s experiment, all participants were started at the same, relatively harmless, 15 volt shock. The shock levels gradually increased in increments of 15 volts and did not become painful or dangerous until several shocks had been administered. However, had participants been asked to deliver one large shock initially, it is less likely that they would have done so, but the method of gradually increasing bit by bit made the previously unthinkable seem like just another step. The idea of gradual commitment could perhaps be applied to the actions carried out my Nazi soldiers, they began small: name calling, minor violent attacks, more serious attacks, then it grew more serious: murder and mass extermination. However Milgram’s study lacks ecological validity and can therefore not be used definitively as explanations for real life situations.
The role of
There are many reasons as to why people obey which have been justified gradually over several decades.
Milgram (1974) argued the fact that in an obedience situation, people tend to pass all sense of responsibility onto the authoritative figure. Milgram said that people are in an autonomous state when taking their responsibility but move into an agentic state when passing this responsibility to an authoritative figure; this shift in state of mind is called an agentic shift. For example in Milgram shock experiment (1963), many participants reported after they were debriefed that they knew delivering the shocks was wrong but they felt that the experimenter was to be held responsible and not them. Similar to at the Nuremberg trials as many Nazi soldiers defended their actions saying they were just following orders so it was not their fault.
Another explanation to why people obey being this idea of Gradual commitment, which has a snowball effect of starting of small and therefore making it easier to progress to something more extreme. If we look back at Milgram’s experiment, all participants were started at the same, relatively harmless, 15 volt shock. The shock levels gradually increased in increments of 15 volts and did not become painful or dangerous until several shocks had been administered. However, had participants been asked to deliver one large shock initially, it is less likely that they would have done so, but the method of gradually increasing bit by bit made the previously unthinkable seem like just another step. The idea of gradual commitment could perhaps be applied to the actions carried out my Nazi soldiers, they began small: name calling, minor violent attacks, more serious attacks, then it grew more serious: murder and mass extermination. However Milgram’s study lacks ecological validity and can therefore not be used definitively as explanations for real life situations.
The role of