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Obedience to Authority

Obviously, Nazi criminals were not monsters, but normal citizens and caring fathers who were willing to commit most cruel crimes. What has been done to bring them there?

The New York psychologist Stanley Milgram (1963) was impressed by the fact that so many people in Germany showed obedience to the Nazi-regime and complied with most cruel orders. How could it happen that the regime was able to maintain the whole network of concentration and death camps?

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Obedience to Authority

A well-known example is Adolf Eichmann, who played a key role in the organization of the Holocaust. In her book “Eichmann in Jerusalem” sketches Hannah Arendt (1963) the picture of a normal man who was able to commit these crimes. She coined the term “banality of evil“.

Can the “banality of evil” be shown experimentally?

Even those at the top of the hierarchy who organized the Holocaust were not especially perverse or sadistic, as many people believed after World War II.

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Obedience to Authority

Two participants entered the laboratory; one of

them was a confederate of the experimenter.

They were told that this is an experiment about

punishment and learning, and that one will be

the learner, the other the teacher who has to

punish after failed learning attempts. Both drew

a paper slip in order to determine who is

teacher; on both slips stood „Teacher“.

Milgram conducted the following experiment:

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Obedience to Authority

Teacher and learner were brought to an adjacent

room. There, the teacher fixed arms and legs of

the learner, attached the cables, and then went to

the experiment room.

Thus, the real participant was always the teacher

who had to present the learning task, check the

answer, give feedback (right or wrong) and

administer electric shocks.

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Obedience to Authority

E = Experimenter

T = Teacher (participant in

the experiment)

L = Learner (confederate of

experimenter)

The participant sat before

the equipment to administer

electric shocks:

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Obedience to Authority

Slight Moderate Strong Very Intense Extreme Danger: XXXShock Shock Shock Strong Shock Intensity Severe

Shock Shock Shock

15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 165 180 195 210 225 240 255 270 285 300 315 330 345 360 375 390 405 420 435 450 ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө

15V

300V

lever

If the learner presses the lever (e.g., 300 V)

420V

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Obedience to Authority

The teacher got the task to administer an

electric shock for each error the learner

committed, beginning with a 15V shock and

then increasing by 15V for each further error.

The teacher got a trial shock of 45V, which is

rather painful. Unbeknownst to the teacher,

no real current did flow through the cables to

the learner, who was the apparent victim.

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Obedience to Authority

In the original experiment, the learner did not

give any vocal feedback, but at 300V pounded

on the wall, which was repeated at 315V. After

that, the learner no longer responded to the

learning task.

The learner was instructed to give answers

according to a schedule of approximately

three wrong answers to one correct answer.

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Obedience to Authority

If the participant turned to the experimenter

and asked him what to do, which was

typically the case after the learner pounded

on the wall, the experimenter responded

with some prepared answers, such as:

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Obedience to Authority Please continue or Please go on

The experiment requires that you continue

It is absolutely essential that you continue

You have no other choice, you must go on

The participants were assured that the shocks may be painful, but would not cause any permanent tissue damage.

Here a graphic summary of the experiment:(Click once on next slide to begin)

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Obedience to Authority

Separation Wall (learner invisible, no vocal feedback)

Experimenter

Teacher(realparticipant)

Learner(mockparticipant)

Shock generator

(Commits an error)

Wrong!

Pound on the wall!

What now?

Please go on

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Obedience to Authority

Over 60% of the participants

went to the highest level: 450 Volt!

100% went up to 300 Volt!

Question: What do you believe, how

many of the 100 participants went up to

the upper end of the scale – 450 Volts?

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Obedience to Authority

This study clearly revealed the banality of the evil: Normal American citizens committed a cruelty that hitherto has been thought to be exceptional. In a later investigation, Milgram found that participants indeed believed that the learners were in pain and did not notice that learners only simulated pain.

Later studies examined the effect of closeness to the victim, closeness to the experimenter, and reputation of the institution on the willingness to comply (Milgram, 1965).

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Obedience to AuthorityMost participants obeyed the experimenter. Some did not feel much tension, whereas others felt visibly uneasy, especially when administering intense electric shocks. Frequently, participants were observed to be in an agitated and even angered state because they felt a conflict between obeying the authority and obeying their own conscience.

On the following slide, an observer to the experiment reports the reaction of a participant in the Milgram experiment:

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Obedience to AuthorityI observed a mature and initially poised

businessman enter the laboratory smiling and

confident. Within 20 minutes he was reduced to

a twitching, stuttering wreck, who was rapidly

approaching a point of nervous collapse. He

constantly pulled on his earlobe, and twisted his

hands. At one point he pushed his fists into his

forehead and muttered: „Oh God, let‘s stop it.“

And yet he continued to respond to every word

of the experimenter, and obeyed to the end.

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Obedience to Authority

The Milgram study elicited heated debates about

ethical issues in psychological research, and

raised questions such as: Could the participants

who played the teacher be harmed?

Milgram later asked the 100 former participants

of his studies, but only one expressed regret

over participation in the experiment. Eighty four

were happy about their participation, and many

said that they have learned something about

themselves.

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Obedience to Authority

Some scholars proposed to use methods that harm the self-esteem of the participants less than the Milgram studies have done.

However, later studies by Milgram (1965) have shown that there is no alternative to the original experimental setup: Both expert judgments and role-plays, where participants were informed about the true nature of the experiment, could not replicate the results and underestimated compliance massively.

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Obedience to Authority

Other studies showed that participants in other

countries, such as Australia, South Africa, and

different European countries, reacted similarly.

In a German study, 85% of the participants went

up to the maximum shock intensity.

As it is forbidden to do the Milgram study

nowadays, we do not know whether people

would react the same way.

What do you think?