Stanley Milgram: Obedience to Authority Or Just Conformity?
What psychological experiment could be so powerful that simply taking part might change your view of yourself and human nature? What experimental procedure could provoke some people to profuse sweating and trembling, leaving 10% extremely upset, while others broke into unexplained hysterical laughter? What finding could be so powerful that it sent many psychologists into frenzied rebuttals? Welcome to the sixth nomination for the top ten psychology studies and as you'll have guessed it's a big one. Hold on for controversy though, as this study has come in for considerable criticism with some saying its claims are wildly overblown.
Explaining human cruelty
"Many wondered after the horrors of WWII, and not for the first time, how people could be motivated to commit acts of such brutality towards each other."Stanley Milgram's now famous experiments were designed to test obedience to authority (Milgram, 1963). What Milgram wanted to know was how far humans will go when an authority figure orders them to hurt another human being. Many wondered after the horrors of WWII, and not for the first time, how people could be motivated to commit acts of such brutality towards each other. Not just those in the armed forces, but ordinary people were coerced into carrying out the most cruel and gruesome acts.
But Milgram didn't investigate the extreme situation of war, he wanted to see how people would react under relatively 'ordinary' conditions in the lab. How would people behave when told to give an electrical shock to another person? To what extent would people obey the dictates of the situation and ignore their own misgivings about what they were doing?
The experimental situation into which people were put was initially straightforward. Participants were told they were involved in a learning experiment, that they were to administer electrical shocks and that they should continue to the end of the experiment. Told they would be the 'teacher and another person the 'learner', they sat in front of a machine with a number of dials labelled with steadily increasing voltages. This was the 'shock machine'. The third switch from the top was labelled: "Danger: Severe Shock", the last two simply: "XXX".
During the course of the experiment, each time the 'learner' made a mistake the participant was ordered to administer ever-increasing electrical shocks. Of course the learner kept making mistakes so the teacher (the poor participant) had to keep giving higher and higher electrical shocks, and hearing the resultant screams of pain until finally the learner went quiet.
"When the participant baulked at giving the electrical shocks, the experimenter - an authority figure dressed in a white lab coat - ordered them to continue."Participants were not in fact delivering electrical shocks, the learner in the experiment was actually an actor following a rehearsed script. The learner was kept out of sight of the participants so they came to their own assumptions about the pain they were causing. They were, however, left in little doubt that towards the end of the experiment the shocks were extremely painful and the learner might well have been rendered unconscious. When the participant baulked at giving the electrical shocks, the experimenter - an authority figure dressed in a white lab coat - ordered them to continue.
Results
Before I explain the results, try to imagine yourself as the participant in this experiment. How far would you go giving what you thought were electrical shocks to another human being simply for a study about memory? What would you think when the learner went quiet after you apparently administered a shock labelled on the board "Danger: Severe Shock"? Honestly. How far would you go?
How ever far you think, you're probably underestimating as that's what most people do. Like the experiment, the results shocked. Milgram's study discovered people are much more obedient than you might imagine. 63% of the participants continued right until the end - they administered all the shocks even with the learner screaming in agony, begging to stop and eventually falling silent. These weren't specially selected sadists, these were ordinary people like you and me who had volunteered for a psychology study.
How can these results be explained?
At the time Milgram's study was big news. Milgram explained his results by the power of the situation. This was a social psychology experiment which appeared to show, beautifully in fact, how much social situations can influence people's behaviour.
The experiment set off a small industry of follow-up studies carried out in labs all around the world. Were the findings still true in different cultures, in slightly varying situations and in different genders (only men were in the original study)? By and large the answers were that even when manipulating many different experimental variables, people were still remarkably obedient. One exception was that one study found Australian women were much less obedient. Make of that what you will.
Fundamentally flawed?
Now think again. Sure, the experiment relies on the situation to influence people's behaviour, but how real is the situation? If it was you, surely you would understand on some level that this wasn't real, that you weren't really electrocuting someone, that knocking someone unconscious would not be allowed in a university study?
"How good would the actors have to be in order to avoid giving away the fact they were actors?"Also, people pick up considerable nonverbal cues from each other. How good would the actors have to be in order to avoid giving away the fact they were actors? People are adept at playing along even with those situations they know in their heart-of-hearts to be fake. The more we find out about human psychology, the more we discover about the power of unconscious processes, both emotional and cognitive. These can have massive influences on our behaviour without our awareness.
Assuming people were not utterly convinced on an unconscious level that the experiment was for real, an alternative explanation is in order. Perhaps Milgram's work really demonstrates the power of conformity. The pull we all feel to please the experimenter, to fit in with the situation, to do what is expected of us. While this is still a powerful interpretation from a brilliant experiment, it isn't what Milgram was really looking for.
Whether you believe the experiment shows what it purports to or not, there is no doubting that Milgram's work was some of the most influential and impressive carried out in psychology. It is also an experiment very unlikely to be repeated nowadays (outside of virtual reality) because of modern ethical standards. Certainly when I first came across it, my view of human nature was changed irrevocably. Now, thinking critically, I'm not so sure.
» This study is also nominated as a top 10 social psychology study.
References
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), 371-378. [Abstract]
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Nice article on Milgram's study.
There was a replication shown here in the USA on ABC news. The researcher (a social psychologist at Santa Clara University) avoided some of the ethical problems by stopping people when they got to 150 volts, but still after it was clear they were harming the "learner." One extension of the original study was the inclusion of women in the replication, who were also willing to go pretty far in harming another person.
Here's the link.
Thanks for that link Dana, I'm surprised to see that any kind of replication of this study was allowed!
I see they also included what they call a 'moral guide' in their experiment which is an interesting variation. It didn't seem to make people any more moral though...
Speaking of conformity, it is fair to mention that a major factor in how far the "teacher" was willing to go was if they were alone, or if there were a group of "teachers." Apparently, when there was more than one teacher they stood up to the "professor" and said "no, I won't do this anymore" more often.
"Thanks for that link Dana, I'm surprised to see that any kind of replication of this study was allowed!"
What is wrong with people? Allowed? By who? What ever happened to freedom?
Wake up people! You're allowed to do whatever you want. It's the state that needs to worry about what it is allowed to do.
Andrew, good point - is there an explanation for this?
Jeffrey, I'm thinking of university ethics committees.
Before you can carry out many different types of research you have to make an application to an ethics committee. Quite sensibly they are nervous about anyone being harmed as a result of an experiment. Milgram's experiment is potentially extremely upsetting to be involved in. Indeed many of Milgram's participants were quite upset by the study.
The balance is different depending on what you hope to gain from the research. Generally medical researchers have a fair amount of leeway because of the potential gains from more dangerous research. Psychologists on the other hand can't generaly show the same type of upsides from their experiments so their research has to be more conservative.
It seems clear to me that Milgram's experiment is completely flawed. Even if the actors are perfect, it's still flawed.
Consider the point of view of someone taking part in such an experiment. They're thinking along the lines of "I'm apparently causing pain to someone and yet this looks like a proper experiment run by a serious looking guy in a labcoat so it must be OK". This is taken as evidence that people will blindly follow authority figures.
But there's nothing blind here. The assumption that despite appearances everything must be OK was in fact correct. It was just an experiment and nobody was hurt. So the 'torturers' in this experiment didn't need to read cues form the actors, they could deduce that things were fine merely from the fact that this experiment was taking place in a civilised society where torturing people is not considered acceptable.
I'm completely bemused about why nobody seems to raise this completely obvious objection. There's no need to look for subconscious cues.
Jacob Needleman in his new book Why Can't We Be Good? looks at this experiment and talks about what he feels are the implications. He also describes showing a movie of it and how his students respond.
Sigfpe, you make a very strong point. The whole experiment is based on the idea that people believe Milgram's situation. Playing devil's advocate though: if people didn't really believe they were hurting anyone, why did they get so nervous? Participants look genuinely highly conflicted about what they are doing.
Stephanie, could you expand a little on that...
To Sigfpe:
That assumes that the people in the experiment, the "teachers" are logically thinking about the situation. I find whenever you assume people are thinking logically you will find yourself mistaken.
Once you understand that people don't act on logic (most of the time), then their behavior becomes easier to understand.
It's true that some people find logical reasons to support what they do or believe not based on logic.
So most "teachers" in the experiment may think "The authority seems to know what's going on, and since he's wearing a lab coat, he must know more than I....I'll take his word for it." People aren't typically cynical of authority, or people in lab coats.
To Jeremy:
Concerning conformity, I do not know the answer for sure, but my theory would be that there is strength in numbers. If one sailor is unhappy with the captain, he grumbles. If he finds that his feelings are shared by many, a mutiny may occur.
In my own experiences I tend to ask myself "Am I the only one who thinks/feels this way, or am I just nuts?" I take it as a legitimate question to find the answer to. If it turns out I'm just nuts, or ignorant of other factors, than why raise a fuss? If it turns out lots of people are in my boat and the authority is nuts or in error, then they ought be shown the error of their ways.
In other words: There's strength in numbers. I think it's a social loafing thing.
Being a spokesman for an angry mob is easy as long as you have a mob behind you cheering you on, but as soon as you look back and see the mob has left to go to a bar, then being the spokesman is very hard.
But that's just my theory.
Andrew, yup, makes sense...
Such kind of experiments resemble to me Derren Brown magic performances, which are a little bit more enlightening as psychologists aren´t used to be so talented smooth operators. Maybe Milgram´s experiment tells us something, but what? Isn´t it some kind of intellingence test, at the end? : How many objects are more stupid then experimentator? To get moral consequences, it will be ínteresting how many objects will risk they own lifes - for example drink water from bottle marked with skull and bones on insistency of good actor. Maybe the difference between number of experimental "sadists" and "masochists" tells us more.
Milgram as the Derren Brown of his time. It's a nice thought!
I really believe that there are more people who go along with the plan presented to them than what we want to think. They do not take responsibility for their own actions. Many years ago when this original experiment was done a lot of students did not question authority. Today I think there are more of us that would not go along with this seniaro and refuse to take orders from the white coat.
obedience, as with many concepts is often used out of insecurity, however
consider perhaps obedience to beig
kind or to being appropriate, or to being loyal to your own free agency.
being obedient to authority is ok as long as it is not out of a desire to
feel secure from the effects of authority. obedience must be utilized consciously. misplaced obedience
is a sign of an uninformed person.
obedience without wisdom is a dangerous attitude. use it wisely.
"to conform" to conform to rules of composition or to rules of the road when driving your car. or to
good practices of any kind are positive conformities. to conform to unspoken social expectations on the other hand may be self destructive.
consider the results of any belief or attitude before putting them into practice. use this thinking in any
situation as a measure of conscious living. do not conform blindly.