Agentic State Theory

Definition

The agentic state is a factor that subjects individuals to obey to instructions or not. The agentic state theory was proposed by Stanley Milgram (1974) and suggests that there is a shift from the autonomous state which is when people take responsibilities for their own actions which they directed themselves, to the agentic state, where people act as agents on other people’s directions/orders, so they take no responsibility for the consequences of the actions (Milgram, 1974). Individuals in the agentic state willing hand over responsibility to those they are obeying to, so they can commit horrendous crimes such as genocide and murder. It can also be said that individuals in the agentic state will conduct actions with no shame or lasting moral consequences on the self, hence lacking a moral compass (Bauman, 1989). The theory of agentic state can be used as examples of why individuals act in particular ways such as the Nazis in World War two and in Milgram’s obedience experiments.

History of Agentic state theory

The historical background for why Milgram conducted his experiment comes from World War two, specifically the Holocaust. During the Nazi regime there was reported up to 17 million deaths between 1930s to mid-way through the 1940s, the mass genocide included people of Jewish religion, homosexuals, Slavic and Romani (cycles & Text, 2024). Questions were later asked as to how could Nazi soldiers and high ranking officers kill all these people. When put on trial in Nuremberg, Adolf Eichmann, who was a key person in the ordering of killing, stated ‘I never did anything, great or small, without obtaining in advance express instructions from Adolf Hitler or any of my superiors’. This shows that in Eichmann’s mind, he has no responsibility for the action and war crimes committed. In terms of the agentic state theory, he was acting as an agent on Hitler’s and high ranking officers, who were authority figures, orders and willing passing the responsibility to this authority. Milgram wanted to investigate this further which is why he conducted his obedience studies, to see how far people will go under instruction from others. However, according to Fenigstein (1998) if in the agentic state the Nazis involved in the killing would have shown remorse or moral distress after, which they did not. Meaning it can be questioned as to whether or not the Nazis involved in the holocaust killings were in the agentic state.

Experimental evidence

Classic Experiments

Milgram experiment

Milgram’s classic obedience study has formed the basis of the agentic state theory (Milgram, 1974). In his experiment Milgram had participants in a laboratory, who believed they were involved in a memory study, act as teachers to a student, who was a collaborator. When the student made an error on the test they were ‘fake’ shocked at increasing voltages by the participant. When the participant refused to shock the collaborator, the experimenter used prompts such as ‘Please go on’ and ‘It is absolutely essential that you continue’. 65% of the participants shocked the collaborator to the maximum voltage (Milgram, 1963). One of the reasons for this high number of obedient participants is the agentic state theory. This means that the participants saw the shocking as an order from the experimenter, so the responsibility of the consequences is that of the experimenter not theirs, despite being the ones to shock. These findings were supported as in a group of naïve participants rewatching the Milgram experiment they attributed the responsibility to the experimenter over the participant (Blass, 1996).

However, there is critiques to the ethics of Milgram’s study. For the procedure to take place Milgram had to deceive his participants and no proper informed consent. Participants were put into highly stressful situation and the psychological harm this caused not taken into consideration. As a result, this experiment lacks ethical considerations so its findings should be taken with caution. Despite this, the study has paved the way contemporary researchers conduct their experiment and the ethical guideline they abide to (Benjamin & Simpson, 2009).

Variation of Milgram’s study

A review looking at all of 23 variations of Milgram’s obedience study found that in one variation where a confederate did the shocking rather than the participant, who just asked the questions, found that out of the 40 participants 37 obeyed and continued through to maximum voltage (Haslam et al., 2014), meaning an obedience rate of 92.5%. This demonstrates the agentic state theory because when others were willing to take the responsibility of shocking the learner, the participants obeyed to the instructions more. This means they denied responsibility as they weren’t the ones shocking the learner.

Stanford Prison experiment

In this classic experiment, Zimbardo split participants into either ‘guards’ or ‘prisoners’. A mock prison was set up in the basement of Stanford University and prisoners were imprisoned. Zimbardo himself was involved in the experiment himself, as the warden. In the experiment, participants just had to play the roles that they were given for the fourteen days of the study. The experiment however was stopped after six days due to major ethical misconducts, as around a third of the guards ‘became tyrannical in their arbitrary use of power’ (Zimbardo, 1971, p. 154) and some prisoners refused to eat (Zimbardo, 1971). The behaviour displayed from these guards could be due to Zimbardo instructing how they can implement their power, meaning that the guards were acting as agents, and they were just obeying. As a result, they may have behaved the way they did as they did not see themselves responsible of the consequences.

Cross cultural experiments

With both Milgram and Zimbardo conducting studies in western cultures, which have demonstrated individuals making the shift from the autonomous to and agentic state, the question to ask is whether this theory can hold up in eastern cultures? As Milgram struggled to find similar findings in his obedience study across cultures with Gupta (1983) showing reduced obedience in a sample of Indian participants.

When specifically looking at the research has found difference in the level of agency in eastern cultures, with East Asian countries showing greater level of individual agentic state than western countries (Kashima et al., 2005). As well as a review discussing the level of agency between western and eastern cultures found that individuals from eastern cultures may shift more towards agency in group due to the collectivist cultures (Hernandez & Iyengar, 2001).

Contemporary research

A study focusing the agentic state theory and how people delegate the responsibility to authority. Laurens et al. (2016) had small sample of 22 participants from the university of Rennes watch animation of a small circle, small triangle and big triangle. There were two conditions one where the small circle was said to be an authority and one with no authority. Each participant took part in both conditions and once the videos had finished, they had to rate how much responsibility was given to each of the objects. The results found that there was significantly high rating of responsibility given to the small circle in the authority condition (Laurens et al., 2016). This shows that when under an authority figure people are more likely to delegate the responsibility to the authority figure showing a shift from the autonomous state to the agentic state.

Real life examples of the agentic state

Iraqi Politics

Saddam Hussein was an Iraqi dictator and leader of the Baath party in the Iraqi government between 1979-2003. During his reign he started several wars and brutalised minorities in Iraq by directing very intense campaigns against them (Britannica, 2024). Hussein threatened those that disobeyed him with torture, killing and exile so the obedience level in the society was very high. Without thinking about the consequence of their actions and responsibility of the act they were committing the Iraqi people had to obey to the dictator’s orders (Elaaf Hadi & Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, 2024). Milgram’s theory of agentic state can be seen here as the Iraqi people fail to take the responsibility of their actions because they are just acting as agents. The only difference seen here is that they had no choice as to whether they could obey or not because of Hussein’s dictatorship they had to be obedient.

Rwanda Genocide

Between the April and July 1994 in Rwanda, a mass genocide of minority ethnicity saw around 800,000 Tutsi slaughtered but people of Hutu ethnicity (BBC, 2019). Research has gone into why and how people can commit such acts. The research conducted has used a qualitative interview technique which relies on the perpetrators interviewed being truthful and it relies on the memory of the interviewee due to being conducted many years after the event. When Caspar (2024) asked the question to why the perpetrators committed the killing around 70% said it was because the government ordered them to do it. They also said that ‘Because of being ordered around and coerced by the government; we had no individual thoughts or feelings’ (Caspar, 2024, p.198). This was also consistent with other findings from another interview by Strauss where perpetrators committed the horrendous murders due to following instruction from the government (Straus, 2007). It is clear that the perpetrators interviewed are refusing to take responsibility of their actions and are very willing to pass said responsibility to the government who ordered the killings so, it can be believed that the perpetrators had gone through the agentic shift into the agentic state.

In the workplace

Research into workplaces that use a hierarchical organisation see the individuals go through an agentic shift into a state of agency (Stasishyn & Ivanov, 2013). According to Milgram (1974) this shift happens when the individual that is coming into a system of authority does not view themselves as acting on their own decisions but those of others in authority. In the workplace, however, this can reduce the creativity and autonomy of the individuals due to them just working as agents in an almost ‘robotic state’, which is said to produce an unhealthy working environment. According to Stasishyn and Ivanov (2013), knowledge of the agentic shift and state can be used to employ new way of workplace organisation which promote a healthy working environment.

Critiques

There are many critiques of Milgram’s agentic state theory due to questions of the theoretical background in which Milgram based the theory on. Mantell and Panzarella (1976) found that there is no empirical evidence that variation in obedience is due to different levels of the agentic state. Furthermore, findings from more recent studies have shown that the point at which participants would come out of the study is when the learner shows their first protests, which would not occur if the participants were in an agentic state and giving responsibility to the experimenter (Packer, 2008). As well as this according to Milgram’s own findings only 65% of participants continued all the way to maximum voltage (Milgram, 1963), if the agentic state theory be true then surely all the participants would have gone all the way? The agentic state theory can be classed as a conceptualised model as there is no way of truly know if the has been a shift into an agentic state from an autonomous one as it cannot be measured, just assumed.

With Milgram’s theory stemming from the horrific events of the holocaust and Adolf Eichmann stating he was just following the order it was also noted that Eichmann lacked any remorse for what he did, suggesting he was not in a state of agency. This may question the basis of Milgram’s study and agentic state theory.

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