The Milgram Experiment and obedience to authority

Can any human being commit the most heinous crimes against humanity just out of obedience to authority? It is a question that many scholars have asked themselves throughout the 20th century, especially after witnessing massive crimes against humanity such as the extermination camps of the III Reich or wars between economic powers. Borderline circumstances in which violence and death were perceived with indifference by a significant part of the population.

In fact, a good handful of researchers have gone one step further and tried to find the keys psychological that explain why, under certain circumstances, human beings are capable of transgressing our values morals.

Stanley Milgram: An American Psychologist

Stanley milgram was a psychologist at Yale University, in 1961 he conducted a series of experiments whose purpose was to measure the disposition of a participant to obey the orders of an authority, even when these orders could cause a conflict with their value system and their conscience.

To what extent are we fully aware of the consequences of our actions when we make a tough decision to obey authority? What complex mechanisms are involved in obedience acts that go against our ethics?

The preparation of the Milgram experiment

Milgram recruited a total of 40 participants by mail and by advertisement in the newspaper in which they were invited to be part of an experiment on "memory and learning" so also, by the simple fact of to participate they would be paid a figure of four dollars (equivalent to about 28 today) assuring them that they would keep the payment “regardless of what will happen after their arrival".

They were made aware that three people were needed for the experiment: the researcher (who wore a white coat and acted as authority), the teacher, and the student. Volunteers were always assigned by a false lottery the role of teacher, while the role of student would always be assigned to an accomplice of Milgram. Both teacher and student would be assigned in different but joint rooms, the teacher always observed with the student (who in reality was always the accomplice) was tied to a chair to "avoid involuntary movements" and electrodes were placed, while the teacher was assigned in the other room in front of an electric shock generator with thirty switches that regulated the intensity of the discharge in 15-volt increments, ranging between 15 and 450 volts and which, according to the researcher, would provide the indicated discharge to the student.

Milgram too s **** e made sure to affix labels indicating the intensity of the shock (moderate, heavy, danger: severe shock and XXX). The reality was that this generator was false, since it did not provide any shock to the student and only produced sound when the switches were pressed.

The mechanics of the experiment

The recruited subject or teacher was instructed to teach pairs of words to the apprentice and that, should he make a mistake, the student had to be punished by applying an electric shock, which would be 15 volts more powerful after each mistake.

Obviously, the student never received shocks. However, to make the situation more realistic for the participant, after pressing the switch, a previously recorded audio with wailing and screaming that with each switch grew louder and louder. If the teacher refused or called the investigator (who was near him in the same room) he would respond with a predefined and somewhat persuasive: “please continue”, “please continue”, “the experiment needs you to continue”, “it is absolutely essential that you continue”, “you have no choice, you must continue". And in case the subject asked who was responsible if something happened to the student, the experimenter limited himself to answering that he was responsible.

Results

During most of the experiment, many subjects showed signs of tension and distress when they heard the screams in the next room which were apparently caused by electric shocks. Three subjects had "long, uncontrollable seizures" and while most subjects felt uncomfortable doing so, all forty subjects obeyed up to 300 volts while 25 of the 40 subjects continued to deliver shocks up to the maximum level of 450 volts.

This reveals that 65% of the subjects reached the end, even when in some recordings the subject complained of heart problems. The experiment was terminated by the experimenter after three 450 volt shocks.

Conclusions drawn by Stanley Milgram

The conclusions of the experiment that Milgram reached can be summarized in the following points:

A) When the subject obeys the dictates of authority, his conscience stops working and there is an abdication of responsibility.

B) The subjects are more obedient the less they have contacted the victim and the further they are physically from it.

C) Subjects with authoritarian personality are more obedient than non-authoritarian ones (classified as such, after an evaluation of fascist tendencies).

D) The closer you are to authority, the greater your obedience.

E) The more academic training, the less intimidation the authority produces, so there is a decrease in obedience.

F) People who have received military-type instruction or severe discipline are more likely to obey.

G) Young men and women obey equally.

H) The subject always tends to justify himself to his inexplicable acts.

Criminological relevance of the experiment

After World War II, subsequent trials of war criminals (including Adolf eichmann) for him Jewish Holocaust. The defense of Eichmann and the Germans when they testified for crimes against humanity was that they simply referred to comply and follow orders, which subsequently led Milgram to ask himself the following questions: Were the Nazis really evil and heartless or was it a group phenomenon that could happen to anyone in the same terms? Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were only following orders from Hitler and Himmler?

Obedience to authority, a principle that would explain institutionalized violence

The principle of obedience to authority it has been defended in our civilizations as one of the pillars on which society is sustained. On a general level, it is obedience to authority that allows the protection of the subject, however exacerbated obedience can result a double-edged sword when the helpful speech of "I only obeyed orders" exempts sadistic impulses from responsibilities and disguises duty.

Before the experiment, some experts hypothesized that only 1% to 3% of individuals would activate the 450-volt switch (and that such subjects would also experience some pathology, psychopathy or sadistic impulses) Despite this, it was ruled out that any of the volunteers had any pathology, as well as aggressiveness as motivation was ruled out after a series of diverse examinations to the volunteers. Given the data, Milgram postulated two theories to try to explain the phenomena.

The first theory: conformity with the group

The first based on the works of Asch compliance, Submits that a subject who does not have the ability or knowledge to make decisions, (particularly in a crisis) will transfer the decisions to the group.

Second theory: reification

The second, more widely accepted theory is known as reification, and refers to that the essence of obedience is that the person is perceived solely as an instrument for the realization of the wishes of the other person and therefore, is not considered responsible for their actions. Thus occurred this "transformation" of self-perception, all the essential characteristics of obedience occur.

An experiment that was a before and after in social psychology

Milgram's experiment represents one of the experiments of the Social psychology of greatest interest to criminology at the time of demonstrate the fragility of human values ​​in the face of blind obedience to authority.

Their results showed that ordinary people, at the command of a figure with little or no authority, are capable of cruelty. In this way criminology has managed to understand how some criminals who have committed savages genocides and terrorist attacks have developed a very high level of obedience to what they consider authority.