Evaluate the Agentic State as an explanation for obedience (4 marks)

There is research support from Blass and Schmitt(2001) who showed a film of Milgram’s study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm to the ‘learner.’ They found that the students blamed the ‘experimenter’ rather than the participant and indicated that the responsibility was due to legitimate authority(the experimenter was top of the hierarchy and had legitimate authority) but also due to expert authority (because he was a scientist). This is significant because they recognised legitimate authority as the cause of obedience therefore supporting Milgram's explanation for obedience.However, other research shows that the behaviours of the Nazis cannot be explained in terms of authority and an agentic shift. Mandel(1998) described an incident involving the German Reserve Police Battilion 101 where men obeyed orders to shoot civilians despite the fact that they did not have direct orders to do so (they were told they could be assigned to other duties if they preferred.) Their behaviour suggests that they acted individually and did not engage in an agentic shift due to legitimacy of authority, as Milgram suggested.