ABSTRACT
The results obtained by Milgram baffled numerous social psychologists and therefore it should come as no surprise that they triggered numerous investigations – over the course of the last 50 years, a number of psychological mechanisms were proposed to explain the pathological obedience. From the “agentic state” proposed by the very author of the experiments, through more recent theories proposed by Gibson (2013), Haslam and Reicher (2015), or Hollander and Turowetz (2017). In this chapter, we review the above-mentioned propositions, while pointing to both differences and similarities among them. We also reflect on the extent these may complement one another and jointly move us closer to explaining the phenomenon referred to herein.
