Let’s start with the obvious: bad things
happen. When they do, it’s often in our best interest
to have an open discussion about why they happened. But, some things are so bad that mainstream
culture deems them unspeakable. These are the acts that you don’t even want
to imagine doing. Maybe, you don’t believe your capable of
doing them. These acts are what one might call evil. I wouldn’t be surprised if you thought that
evil was only the product of psychopaths and sadists. But, unfortunately, this just isn’t so. The world witnessed evil during WW2 and, more
specifically, the Holocaust. When Adolf Eichmann - one of the main figures
responsible for organizing the systematic killing of millions - was put on trial, he
said that he was just following orders: this thought is frightening. This statement makes you rethink the idea
of evil. It transforms evil from being the work of
a small minority to a product of the vast majority. Perhaps, evil is what happens when people
stop thinking for themselves and just obey the orders of others. If so, the capacity for evil lies within all
of us. This is the context in which Stanley Milgram
conducted his renowned experiment on obedience; it’s a chilling experiment that reminds
us that with the ability for great good comes the ability for great evil. To really understand the Milgram experiments,
it helps to split it into two tests: the fake one and the real one. Let’s start with the fake one. There are 3 participants: the experimenter,
a teacher, and a learner. The subject that Milgram was studying was
always given the role of teacher. The learner was an actor that was in on the
experiment. The actual study was disguised as a fake study
that was said to be testing the effects of punishment on learning. Specifically, they were testing the effects
of administering electric shocks on a learner’s ability to memorize a list of word-pairs. For example, green-flower or couch-potato. The subject was tasked with teaching the learner
this list. The subject would go through the list once
and then read off one of the words in a pair. If the learner guessed the word correctly,
the subject would move on to the next pair. However, if they guessed incorrectly, the
subject was supposed to administer an electric shock. Shocks went up in 15V increments all the way
up until 450V. There were also corresponding labels indicating
the intensity of shocks ranging from slight shock to simply XXX. The real test underlying this fake one was
to see how far subjects would be willing to go in administering shocks before they stopped. At the shock level of 300V, the subject would
hear the learner pounding on the wall and begin refusing to answer. A second pound was heard at 315V. This test was designed to put the subject
in a tug of war between obeying their own morals and obeying an authority figure. If the subject began hesitating, the experimenter
used 1 of 4 prods to get him to continue. They ranged in intensity from simple requests
to orders. The results of the test were shocking: 65%
of participants administered the maximum level of shocks. All participants obeyed until 300V. Various forms of Milgram’s experiment have
been replicated several times and continue to produce similar results. Although, modifying different conditions seems
to produce varying levels of obedience. After going through a lot of the literature,
the question isn’t do we obey, but when and why ? I think the best place to start is with Milgram’s
interpretation of the experiment. But, before you can understand it, you have
to understand his view of obedience as a natural phenomenon. Milgram believed that humans evolved the capacity
to organize into social hierarchies because it was a huge survival advantage. Instead of competing as individuals, we could
work together as a powerful group. In order to create these hierarchies, humans
must be capable of giving up control to an external source: this could be another person
or an idea. If two independent people give up control
to a third person, the third person can coordinate the entire group. For example, imagine a group of cars giving
up control to the commands of a traffic cop. By giving up their personal autonomy, traffic
can flow in a more coordinated fashion. However, if they all act on their own, traffic
will flow less efficiently and accidents are more likely to happen. There are social hierarchies all around you. When you enter a hierarchy, Milgram believed
that you’d undergo a critical shift in mindset from that of an autonomous individual to that
of an agent. When you enter a hierarchy and become an agent,
you no longer feel responsible for your actions but responsible to the one above you. This new mindset is known as the agentic state. To understand this state, it helps to separate
it into a few components: the capacity for agency, why we become an agent, the features
of an agent, and what keeps us from exiting the agentic state. Milgram argues that the agentic state has
been socialized in us through family, school, and work because these environments value
obedience, reward us for it and punish us for disobedience. So, why would you choose to become an agent? Imagine that you’re taking part in this
experiment. You walk into the room. What do you do? If you want to the experiment to run effectively,
you need to cooperate with the group. Recall that one of the most effective ways
to coordinate a group is to designate a leader. Someone has to be in charge, right? Since this is a new hierarchy that you’re
entering into, you know that you’re not in charge. You assign that role to the experimenter because
you perceive them to be a “legitimate authority”. You willingly enter this hierarchy because
it has a guiding ideology that you believe in and would be willing to further: progress
& science. Lastly, the experimenter makes demands of
you that are appropriate for the hierarchy that you’re in. He makes demands with regards to the experiment
and not unrelated things. He doesn’t tell you what you eat for dinner. All of these factors combined allow you to
willingly accept the role of an agent. Now that we have become an agent, what does
this shift in mindset entail? When we are in the hierarchy we tend to value
the word of our superiors more than our inferiors. Continuing our example, you’re not going
to take advice from the learner on how to conduct the experiment. That’s because you see him at an equal or
lower position on the hierarchy. We also reinterpret our actions with regards
to the mission of the hierarchy - for example, scientific progress. Keep in mind that we have willingly entered
this hierarchy as an agent with a belief in its guiding mission. This leads to the most important feature of
being an agent: we no longer feel responsible for our actions but responsible to carrying
out the wishes of the one above us. However, once we’ve entered the agentic
state, what keeps us there? If we hear the pounding and feel we are doing
something morally wrong, why can’t we leave? Milgram’s first reason is consistency. To admit that our current action is wrong
would mean that we have to admit that all of our actions leading up to this point were
wrong. That is a very tough pill to swallow and most
people would rather not do it. The second reason is that we feel an obligation
to the experimenter. We already made a commitment to help him and
we want to uphold it. The third reason is that all participants
entered and began this experiment under a specific situational definition: we acknowledged
that the authority was legitimate, knew what he was doing, and deserved to be higher up
in the hierarchy than us. Violating this, or any, socially agreed upon
situational definition produces feelings of awkwardness and discomfort because we are
disrupting the social order. Lastly, there are feelings of anxiety associated
with disobeying an authority figure. We have been socialized to respect authority
figures and anticipating that we may have to disobey and disrupt the social order makes
us anxious. However, alternative studies shine light on
different aspects of Milgram’s studies. Some studies suggest something along the lines
of a trusted expert that motivates subjects to continue obeying. They believed that they could trust that the
scientist knew more about the experiment than they did or that they could trust that a scientist
would act responsibly. Based on an individuals life experience, these
would be reasonable beliefs to hold. The experimenter had even told participants
that the shocks were “painful but not dangerous”. So, the real reason they continued was because
they didn’t believe that the learner was actually in any real danger. Other studies suggest that participants continued
to obey because they believed that they were agents of a worthy ideology. Specifically, one study found that of the
four prods that Milgram used, the one most resembling an order was the least effective
and the one most resembling an appeal to science was the most effective. In this case, it would seem that subjects
are actually motivated by the belief that their actions were for the benefit of science. In both alternative explanations, participants
would believe that they were doing the right thing. Alternatively, some people believe that Milgram’s
experiments were nothing but theatre and invalid as a scientific experiment. On the otherhand, many believe that Milgram
did stumble upon something significant but there isn’t universal agreement over exactly
what that is. We can’t make a jump from Milgram’s results
to explaining the actions of those involved in the Holocaust. The experiment itself was conducted in a lab
setting and so we have to be careful about interpreting those results with regards to
real life. However, it does provide us with a lot of
food for thought about how different situations can affect the actions we take. Milgram’s experiments serve as a critical
reminder that a potential monster lies deep within each of us and it would be in our best
interest to be mindful of that. But, let me know your thoughts. Why do you think we obey?
See also the 2015 film Experimenter. It was available on Netflix last time I checked.
Edit: Add link.
Milgram's 37 is a good study in the fucked up stuff humans can do to one another for the sake of being obedient