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Describe and Evaluate Milgrams Agency Theory

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Describe and evaluate Milgram’s agency theory [12] Milgram’s agency theory basically states that you the state of mind you are in determines if you’re obedient or not. He argued that normally we operate in the autonomous state, where you assert control over yourself and what we do. An example of this is when faced with danger, most people will turn away to try and avoid conflict. Even if you decide not to walk away, this is still the autonomous state because you’re deciding what to do. There is also the agentic state which says you are subconsciously acting as an agent to some authority figure and that you do what they tell you because you feel as if you are an agent of that person. An example of this would be during the trial of Nazi’s…show more content…
In his theory of obedience Milgram found that 65% of participants went to 450 volts and 100% went to 300 volts. From this he concluded that American men would obey an authority figure even if they harmed a stranger. As the participants obeyed the authority figure it shows that they were acting as agents to help the researcher with his study, this illustrates the agentic state. On the other hand there are disadvantages
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