Situational Explanations: When Good People Do Bad Things
Your brain has two main modes when it comes to authority, and understanding these could help explain some pretty shocking behaviour. The agentic state is like putting yourself on autopilot - you stop feeling personally responsible for your actions because you're just "following orders" from someone in charge.
Think of it as your moral conscience taking a backseat. When you're in this state, you genuinely believe you're just acting as someone else's agent, which frees you from feeling guilty about potentially harmful actions. It's the psychological equivalent of saying "don't blame me, I was just doing what I was told."
The opposite is the autonomous state, where you're fully independent and take complete responsibility for your choices. Milgram's research showed that people shift from autonomy to agency when they recognise someone as an authority figure - basically anyone higher up in the social hierarchy than them.
Key Insight: Even when people desperately want to stop obeying harmful orders, binding factors keep them trapped - these are situational elements that help them minimise or ignore the damage they're causing, reducing their moral discomfort.
