SIVYER PSYCHOLOGY

View Original

MILGRAM AND OBEDIENCE

Rebecca Sivyer

EXPLANATIONS FOR OBEDIENCE: THE AGENTIC STATE AND LEGITIMACY OF AUTHORITY

MY LAI MASSACRE (1969)

Paul Meadlo was a US Army soldier who participated in the mass killing of civilians at My Lai in March 1968. A Private First Class Meadlo from Goshen in rural Indiana, Meadlo was a member of 1st Platoon Company C under Lieutenant William Calley. Two days after the My Lai Massacre, Meadlo lost a foot after stepping on a landmine; he had been following Calley’s orders to move quickly through an area known to be mined.

In November 1969, a few weeks after Calley had been charged with murder, a film crew from television network CBS visited Goshen and interviewed Meadlo and members of his family.

BACKGROUND

Adolf Eichman

During the Nuremberg trials, Nazis perpetrators blamed their crimes on their superiors, they maintained that as military soldiers, they are trained not to question authority and therefore not personally responsible for the actions they took. Indeed in the early 1960s, former-Nazi Adolf Eichmann was put on trial in Jerusalem for war crimes. Eichmann had been one of the main organisers of the Holocaust but, in his trial, he said he was “only following orders.” Eichmann was executed for his crimes against humanity, but critics supposed this tendency towards blind obedience was part of the German national character.

But Yale University psychology professor Stanley Milgram rejected dispositional (personality) explanations as he felt that the dispositional theories were rather simplistic, mainly because psychopathy is statistically rare and can’t account for the large number of Nazis that were willing to commit genocide. Others disagreed, arguing that there is blind obedience in everyone. Milgram was very interested in the idea that situational factors, that is factors in the environment, could have a profound influence on behaviours such as obedience to an unjust command - that ultimately resulted in genocide.

AGENCY THEORY

Milgram developed Agency Theory in the first place to answer the question, “why did decent German citizens obey orders from Nazi rulers to commit genocide?” He also addressed related questions: “Could something like that happen anywhere?” “Could obedience to an unjust command be due to situational factors.?”

STANLEY MILGRAM

A core element of Agency theory is that people operate in two states:

The autonomous state is when an individual acts freely and takes responsibility for their actions. The agentic state is when an individual stops acting autonomously (of their own volition) because they have been ordered to do something by a legitimate authority figure (superior).

Individuals in the agentic state do not take responsibility for their actions because, according to Milgram, they go through a change in who they see as responsible for their behaviour. Milgram called this change THE AGENTIC SHIFT.  In short, the agentic shift is where a person changes from seeing themselves as responsible for their behaviour and hands over the blame to the legitimate authority figure who is giving the order. It is, after all, another person’s wishes they are carrying out. An order from an authority figure triggers the agentic shift into the Agentic State.

MORAL STRAIN

When an authority figure issues an order that goes against our conscience, we experience moral strain. This is because we have two contradictory urges: to obey the authority figure (and society's expectations) and to obey our consciences (and keep our own self-image as "a good person"). Moral strain might appear as physical distress, like shaking or weeping. Milgram points out that his own participants used "defence mechanisms" (a term originally used by Freud) to lessen the moral strain:

Applied to the holocaust this would mean that Nazis did not want to kill Jews, they were simply following orders. When Nazis were ordered to Kill Jews, they would have experienced moral strain and, as a result, gone into the agentic state to avoid feeling terrible about their crimes.
BINDING FACTORS

Milgram believed that there were several characteristics of a situation that predisposed a person to go through the agentic shift, he called these binding factors:

LEGITIMATE AUTHORITY

Milgram believed that we allow some people to have authority over us, for example, policemen, soldiers, immigration officers, doctors, teachers, etc. These authority figures must have credentials to prove their legitimacy for as Bickman showed, we don’t let any old civilian tell us what to do. Credentials include symbols of power such as a uniform, badge, ID, stamp, reputation, and seal. .

legitimate authority can also be reflected in our institutions., for example, Oxford University DSM, ICD, WHO, BBC DLVA, and the government. People or institutions with credentials have legitimate authority. If people giving orders don’t seem legitimate, people don’t obey them as using:  “My friend Bob told me to shoot the intruder” will not excuse your behaviour in the eyes of the law as everybody knows Bob has no power. But if a lieutenant ordered you to kill an intruder, then you have legal recourse.

SOCIALISATION:

We are socialised from a young age to obey those with legitimate authority: elders, parents, grandparents, teachers, policemen, military, prefects, immigration etc society could not function without obedience. Milgram thought conditioning played a part. From an early age, our parents, neighbours and teachers condition us to respect authority figures. They reward us when we are respectful and punish us when we disobey (operant conditioning). By the time we reach school-age, obedience is deeply ingrained.
GRADUAL COMMITMENT is where people who initially obey small requests find it hard not to obey larger requests. This is supported by Milgram’s studies as the initial shock was only 15 volts, gradually rising by 15 to 450 volts. This called also be applied to gang recruitment where young recruits are initiated by getting them to commit smaller crimes first.

THE PRESENCE OF ‘BUFFERS’ (a buffer is a thing that forms a barrier against an emotional or provocative situation e.g, buying pre-packaged, butchered meat from supermarkets, buffers us against the reality of eating a dead animal). In Milgram’s original study and in some of his variations, many of the scenarios contained buffers, i.e., there was a psychological distance between the participant and the learner, making it easier for the participant to inflict pain; if you can’t see the person you are hurting you might have less empathy for them.

RESEARCH SUPPORT

Please Note; The specification asks for a discussion of uniform but the uniform is really just “LEGITIMACY OF AUTHORITY”

So you can use the L. Bickman (1974) study on the power of uniforms or any of Milgram’s variations above where the legitimacy of authority have been removed, e.g., moving the offices to Bridport or removing the experimenter from the room and giving instructions by phone.

L. BICKMAN, 19974, showed how uniform acts as a symbol of authority when he showed participants were more likely to obey a guard than an ordinary civilian. The degree and basis of the social power of uniformed figures were investigated in two field experiments. In the first experiment, subjects were stopped in the street by an experimenter dressed in one of three ways: a civilian, a milkman, or a guard. They were asked to pick up a paper bag, or give a dime to a stranger, or move away from a bus stop. The results indicated that the subjects complied more with the guard than with the civilian or milkman. In the second field experiment, designed to examine the basis of the guard's power, subjects were asked to give a dime to a stranger under conditions of either surveillance or non-surveillance. The guard's power was not affected by the surveillance manipulation. A logical analysis of social power indicated that the guard's power was most likely based on legitimacy. This supports the idea that legitimate authority affects obedience as there were drops in the levels of obedience However, two questionnaire studies indicated that college students did not perceive the guard as having either more. power or more legitimacy than the milkman or civilian.

LEGITIMACY OF THE AUTHORITY FIGURE: This was supported by Milgram’s research. He showed that levels of obedience fell when he removed the legitimate authority figure by dressing the experimenter more casually removing his white coat. In another variation, the observation was moved from the prestigious ivy league university to a seedy office in a run-down city. The results showed that the participants in the Bridgeport study were less likely to obey because they did not see the researchers as qualified. Moreover, in another variation of Milgram’s experiment, teachers were given orders by telephone, decreasing the perceived presence of the authority figure, which made levels of obedience fall.

EVALUATION

Many social psychologists still use Agency Theory to explain atrocities from the Holocaust to the Vietnam War’s My Lai massacre to the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. But David Mandel feels that using situational explanations as an excuse for evil behaviour is offensive to Holocaust survivors as it mitigatess the role of racism and in doing so removes the ability for societies to better understand the mechanisms behind genocide and xenophobia.

INTERNAL VALIDITY

RESISTING OBEDIENCE

After analyzing the conversation patterns from audio recordings of 117 study participants, Hollander found that Milgram’s original classification of his subjects—either obedient or disobedient—failed to capture the true dynamics of the situation. Rather, he argued, people in both categories tried several different forms of protest—those who successfully ended the observation early were simply better at resisting than the ones that continued shocking.

“Participants said things like ‘I can’t do this anymore’ or ‘I’m not going to do this anymore,’” he said, even those who went all the way to 450 volts. “I understand those practices to be a way of trying to stop the observation in a relatively aggressive, direct, and explicit way.”It’s a far cry from Milgram’s idea that the capacity for evil lies dormant in everyone, ready to be awakened with the right set of circumstances. The ability to disobey toxic orders, Hollander said, is a skill that can be taught like any other—all a person needs to learn is what to say and how to say it.

DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS

Moreover, Milgrams’ research has serious issues over internal validity as many researchers believe his participants were not behaving authentically. Indeed records of Milgram’s research came to light after his death and revealed many of his participants were aware of the aims of his study. This means that if the study lacked validity that it cannot be used to support Milgram’s theory.

One silver lining to Milgram is in how it can inoculate people against such drone-like behaviour. It can help people to resist. Simply knowing how far we can be manipulated helps allow individuals to say, "No”. The counterargument is that being able to resist obedience to unjust authority also rests on the severity of the sanction imposed for disobeying an order. In Nazi Germany, for instance, protecting Jewish people could have devasting consequences for a person, whereas, people constantly park on single yellow lanes because the punishment is trivial. It may be therefore that that agency theory is only relevant to understanding why people obey “just orders” or “unjust orders” with catastrophic consequences.

EXTERNAL VALIDITY:

ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY

David Mandel criticised Milgram’s research for lacking external validity because he said real soldiers in the SS had not displayed the same behaviours as Milgram’s participants had in the variations. In other words, the Nazis still killed Jews despite being in close proximity or without supervision and some even went on killing sprees of their own volition. Mandel believes this is evidence that the agentic state did not exist. Nazis didn’t need to be given orders to kill so, therefore, they must have been operating from an autonomous state.

POPULATION VALIDITY: THE PARTICIPANTS WERE NOT SADISTS BUT MAYBE THE SS WERE

Milgram’s participants were not sadists nor in a sadistic frenzy when they shocked the learner, nor hate-mongers, and they often exhibited great anguish and conflict in the observation by showing signs of serious distress and anxiety, such as nervous laughing fits. Some even had seizures. These were not willing accomplices but participants were essentially forced to act a certain way. This is the complete opposite of the designers and executioners in the Final Solution, who had a clear "goal" on their hands, that had been set beforehand.

MORAL STRAIN

Many participants tried not to look at the experimenter or even look up from the shock generator, according to Milgram this is evidence of moral strain. In Milgram’s observational studies, moral strain was shown by the participants who obeyed (weeping, groaning, shaking, fainting), not by the ones who disobeyed. Milgram’s theory suggests that the Agentic State is an escape from moral strain, but this is not what is observed in his studies as if participants were in the agentic state they would not have shown moral strain.

Moreover, Interviews with veterans reveal that the majority do feel guilty about atrocities committed in combat which is why so many suffer from PSTD. For example, Paul Meadlo a US Army soldier who was ordered to kill over 400 civilians in the Mai Lai Massacre claimed to see women and children in his sleep and said that he suffered from insomnia due to thinking about the things he had done. This means he was in an autonomous state when he was following orders.

DENIAL: According to Milgram, some participants convinced themselves that the shocks weren't dangerous (even though "DANGER" was written on the shock generator); Milgram argues that many people in Nazi Germany used denial to avoid moral strain, e.g., they refused to believe what was going on in the death camps because it was too painful.

“The mass of ordinary Germans did know about the evolving terror of Hitler’s Holocaust, according to a new research study. They knew concentration camps were full of Jewish people who were stigmatised as sub-human and race-defilers. They knew that these, like other groups and minorities, were being killed out of hand.
They knew that Adolf Hitler had repeatedly forecast the extermination of every Jew on German soil. They knew these details because they had read about them. They knew because the camps and the measures which led up to them had been prominently and proudly reported step by step in thousands of officially-inspired German media articles and posters according to the study, which is due to be published simultaneously in Britain and the US early next month and which was described as ground-breaking by Oxford University Press yesterday and already hailed by other historians. The reports, in newspapers and magazines all over the country, were phases in a public process of “desensitisation” which worked all too well, culminating in the killing of 6m Jews, says Robert Gellately. His book, Backing Hitler, is based on the first systematic analysis by a historian of surviving German newspaper and magazine archives since 1933, the year Hitler became chancellor. The survey took hundreds of hours and yielded dozens of folders of photocopies, many of them from the 24 main newspapers and magazines of the period.”

— John Ezard The Guardian Sat 17 Feb 2001

DETERMINISM: Milgram’s theory means we are all capable of evil in the right situations - depressing? DISCUSS

ALTERNATIVE THEORIES

The subjects of Milgram's observation wrote James Waller (Becoming Evil), we’re assured in advance that no permanent physical damage would result from their actions. However, the Holocaust perpetrators were fully aware of their hands-on killing and maiming of the victims.

In the opinion of Thomas Blass—who is the author of a scholarly monograph on the observation (The Man Who Shocked The World) published in 2004—the historical evidence pertaining to actions of the Holocaust perpetrators speaks louder than words:

“ My own view is that Milgram's approach does not provide a fully adequate explanation of the Holocaust. While it may well account for the dutiful destructiveness of the dispassionate bureaucrat who may have shipped Jews to Auschwitz with the same degree of routinization as potatoes to Bremerhaven, it falls short when one tries to apply it to the more zealous, inventive, and hate-driven atrocities that also characterized the Holocaust”

The truth is that obeying unjust commands is probably down to a host of variables that are hard to untangle such as nationalism, in-group bias, survival, DNA and socialisation.

Some researchers have interpreted the events of the Holocaust as more relevant to a Social Identity Theory explanation. The learner was after all, similar in all demographics to the participants, e.g, a white American Male, in other words, possibly a member of their own in-group. Moreover, The laboratory subjects themselves did not know their victims and were not motivated by racism or other biases they had no reason to hurt the learner or hate him and nothing to gain by doing so. On the other hand, the Holocaust perpetrators displayed an intense devaluation of the victims through a lifetime of personal development. For example, when the behaviour of perpetrators (e.g., Nazis) is understood to derive from identification and commitment to, an ingroup (e.g., German or Aryan race) and a cause that is believed to be noble and worthwhile (e.g., protect the German economy from outsiders - Jews are outsiders). Members of an in-group will protect the qualities of their Klan (all Germans are lovely) and demonise and fabricate negative qualities in the out-group (e.g., Jews).

Evolutionary theory is a similar explanation to social identity theory in many ways as it suggests that in-group members are xenophobic to out-group members as a survival mechanism in a hostile environment. Surprisingly, Milgram did actually believe that some aspects of the Agentic Shift were caused by natural selection. He argued that obedience was a survival trait that enabled tribes of early humans to flourish. He thought that the early humans who were disobedient would have not survived the dangers of the prehistoric world and thus not their genes. But this makes his theory confusing as on the one hand, he denies dispositional theories which would include biological causes of personality but he accepts that biological mutations shape the brain.

ANOTHER alternative theory is Social Impact Theory which suggests that everyone applies Social Force to everyone else to get what they want. This is similar to Milgram’s idea of the Agentic State because people find it hard to resist pressures to obey. Both theories regard people as passive, doing whatever social pressure makes them do. However, Social Impact Theory ignores the importance of moral strain.

PROTECT YOUR IN-GROUP

*Note, there are numerous other theories that explain obedience. Some exam boards require students to learn the Authoritarian personality. But AQA put the Authoritarian personality on the specification so that you can learn about why it is so flawed. It’s definitely not there because it's a good theory. Therefore, I think it’s a bad alternative theory to suggest in place of Milgram because it makes it look like you are unaware of its limitations. Nevertheless, AQA will credit A03 for using it as an alternative theory, so do it, if needs must.

The AUTHORITARIAN PARENT

Theodor Adorno (1950) argues that some people have an “Authoritarian Personality” because they love following rules and being subordinate to authority figures. But conversely, they also have suppressed rage at being subordinate to their authoritarian parents during their childhood. So when they are adults, they take this unconscious, pent-up rage and displace it towards a person or object that doesn’t feel threatening or have power - such as a minority group. This theory suggests obedience to evil orders comes from a dysfunctional personality, not a social situation, it is therefore known as a dispositional theory. But this is not a good alternative theory to give in an essay, as it’s pretty much discredited itself. Psychopathy is statistically rare and SS killers were not. Moreover, the F scale, the tool used to measure the Authoritarian Personality, was invalid.

SUMMING UP

That all being said, there's a reason why Milgram's observation stays with us today. Whether it's evolutionarily or socially drilled into us, it seems that humans are capable of doing terrible things and that is always worth researching.

“To a remarkable degree,” Peter Baker wrote in Pacific Standard in 2013, “Milgram’s research has come to serve as a kind of all-purpose lightning rod for discussions about the human heart of darkness.

UNLESS YOU ARE SPECIFICALLY ASKED TO COMMENT ON THE ETHICS IN MILGRAM’S STUDY I WOULD PROBABLY NOT INCLUDE IT. FOR EXAMPLE, IF YOU ARE TO DISCUSS MILGRAM’S EXPLANATIONS FOR OBEDIENCE. THEN YOU ARE BEING ASKED TO EVALUATE HIS THEORY NOT THE ETHICS.

“Until they emerged from the lab, the participants didn’t know that the shocks weren’t real, that the cries of pain were pre-recorded, and that the learner—railroad auditor Jim McDonough—was in on the whole thing, sitting alive and unharmed in the next room. They were also unaware that they had just been used to prove the claim that would soon make Milgram famous: that ordinary people. “All ethics were broken: deceiving participants, causing psychological/physical harm, and no informed consent. “

Points for commentary:

Genocide is a significant humanitarian concern, so does the end justify the means with Milgram’s research; whereas Zimbardo abused his participants for a lot less social gain, e.g., learning about offender aggression?

Could it have been done differently? Most people deny they would go to 450 volts when learning about Milgram’s experiment so surely a “role play” would be pointless?

This leads nicely into the next point, what should take priority when designing research: protection of participants or the pursuit of scientific knowledge? If we protect participants too much, e.g., not deceiving them and ensuring informed consent then the outcome of a study will be worthless because the results lack internal validity. Demand characteristics, social desirability bias, the Hawthorne effect, etc cause contrived behaviours, this is a massive hurdle for experimental psychologists to overcome.

And of course, there need to be ethical rules in place, nobody wants to see a return of Tuskegee and other similar horrors but has the pendulum swung too heavily on one side?

Of the three cardinal rules of the BPS ethical code which could be eliminated or relaxed?

  • Protection from physical and psychological harm

  • The right to informed consent

  • The right not to be deceived

Protection from harm is a brainer, it has to stay on the list! But defining physical harm is not that problematic, it's easy-ish to operationalise. What constitutes psychological harm is less straightforward. And there are mixed reactions to the perception of psychological harm with Milgram. For example “Team, Milgram” would argue, that participants were free to go at any time, they didn’t have to obey? The fact they didn’t act how they wanted was ultimately their choice. And big deal, they learned something unpleasant about themselves but perhaps in the future, they will be less subordinate, less blind. Milgram’s study highlighted issues that were probably already apparent in their lives, e.g., afraid to talk to their boss or stand up for themselves. Lastly, did Milgram really treat them so differently from their experiences in real life? Try telling the absolute truth all day? Who lies to you (sibling, daughter, son, parent, boss, friend, advert, newspaper, politician, company, government).

SITUATIONAL VARIABLES AFFECTING OBEDIENCE INCLUDING UNIFORM, PROXIMITY AND LOCATION, AS INVESTIGATED BY MILGRAM

OUTLINE OF MILGRAM’S ORIGINAL RESEARCH - for information only - see below

!!!!!!!! - WARNING IF YOU ARE STUDYING THE AQA SPECIFICATION, YOU NEVER EVER DESCRIBE OR OUTLINE (APFC) MILGRAM’S ORIGINAL STUDY - ONLY HIS VARIATIONS (IF ASKED TO DISCUSS RESEARCH STUDIES) OR AGENCY THEORY IF ASKED TO DISCUSS EXPLANATIONS. THIS IS THE BIGGEST MISTAKE STUDENTS MAKE WHEN ANSWERING THE MILGRAM QUESTION - THEY JUST CAN’T SEEM TO RESIST - SO BE WARNED

All theories need research so in 1961, Milgram placed an advertisement in the New Haven Register asking for volunteers for his new study.

AIM: Milgram (1963) was interested in researching how far people would go in following an unjust order such as harming another person. Stanley Milgram hypothesised that ordinary people could be influenced into committing atrocities, for example, Germans in WWII because of situational factors like obedience as described in his “Agency Theory”.

PROCEDURE: 1961, Milgram placed an advertisement in the New Haven Register asking for volunteers “We will pay you $4 for one hour of your time,” “We need 500 New Haven men to help us complete a scientific study of memory and learning.” Thus, participants were recruited by volunteer sample. There were 40 males, aged between 20 and 50, whose jobs ranged from unskilled to professional, from the New Haven area. They were paid $4 for just turning up.

Shock generator

At the beginning of the observation, they were introduced to another participant, who was a confederate of the experimenter (Milgram). They drew straws to determine their roles – learner or teacher – although this was fixed and the confederate was always the learner. There was also an “experimenter” dressed in a grey lab coat, played by an actor (not Milgram).
Two rooms in the Yale Interaction Laboratory were used - one for the learner (with an electric chair) and another for the teacher and experimenter with an electric shock generator.

The “learner” (Mr Wallace) was strapped to a chair with electrodes. After he has learned a list of word pairs given him to learn, the "teacher" tests him by naming a word and asking the learner to recall its partner/pair from a list of four possible choices.
The teacher is told to administer an electric shock every time the learner makes a mistake, increasing the level of shock each time. There were 30 switches on the shock generator marked from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 (danger – severe shock).
The learner gave mainly wrong answers (on purpose), and for each of these, the teacher gave him an electric shock. When the teacher refused to administer a shock, the experimenter was to give a series of orders/prods to ensure they continued.

The set up of Milgram’s obedience study

There were four prods and if one was not obeyed, then the experimenter (Mr Williams) read out the next prod, and so on.

Prod 1: Please continue
Prod 2: The experiment requires you to continue.
Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue.
Prod 4: You have no other choice but to continue.

RESULTS: 65% (two-thirds) of participants (i.e., teachers) continued to the highest level of 450 volts. All the participants continued to 300 volts.
CONCLUSIONS: Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being.  Obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the way we are brought up. People tend to obey orders from other people if they recognise their authority as morally right and/or legally based. This response to legitimate authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family, school, and workplace.

OUTLINE VARIATIONS ON MILGRAM’S ORIGINAL STUDY 

Milgram's Variations:

Introduction:

  1. Have you studied Stanley Milgram's original obedience experiment?

  2. Are you familiar with Milgram's theory of the agentic state, also known as Agency Theory?

  3. Can you quickly list the elements of Agency Theory?

  4. What is the significance of the autonomous state, agentic shift, agentic state, and moral strain in Milgram's research? Recap on Agency Theory:

  5. Can you name the binding factors identified by Milgram?









(Answer: BINDING FACTORS - legitimacy of authority, SOCIALISATION - GRADUAL COMMITMENT, THE PRESENCE OF ‘BUFFERS,’ LEGITIMACY OF THE AUTHORITY FIGURE)

Milgram carried out a lot of research in support of Agency Theory. He believed his “variations” supported the idea that situational factors make participants more or less obedient. Milgram carried out 18 variations of his study.  In each of the variations, he altered one variable, such as the proximity between “Teacher” and “Learner” or the level of legitimate authority given to the “Experimenter “ or the venue where the observation took place. Milgram did this to narrow down the precise mechanisms behind blind obedience.

Stanley Milgram conducted variations in his experiments to gain a more nuanced understanding of the factors influencing obedience to authority. His original obedience experiment, which involved participants delivering what they believed to be harmful electric shocks to another person, revealed high levels of obedience. Milgram sought to explore the conditions under which people would be more or less likely to obey authority figures.

The variations were designed to manipulate specific situational factors, such as the proximity of the authority figure, the physical closeness of the learner, the prestige of the institution, and the role of a rebel. By introducing these variations, Milgram aimed to uncover the underlying mechanisms that contribute to the agentic state and the willingness to obey, providing a more comprehensive and detailed picture of the dynamics at play in obedience to authority.

Milgram's Variations:

  1. Proximity of authority figure: Instructions by telephone

  2. Physical closeness of the learner: The Learner is placed in the same room as the teacher

  3. Prestige of the institution: Conducted in a run-down office building

  4. Role of a rebel: Two other confederates refuse to continue the experiment

  5. Ordinary person as authority: Ordinary individual replaces the experimenter

  6. Voice-feedback condition: Teacher hears the learner's protests

  7. The teacher forces the learner’s hand on the electric plate

Which variations tie to specific binding factors?

BINDING FACTORS -

  1. Legitimacy of authority (authority figure and institution)

    Note: The specification asks for a discussion of uniform, but uniform is really just “LEGITIMACY OF AUTHORITY.”

    So you can use the L. Bickman (1974) study on the power of uniforms or any of Milgram’s variations above where the legitimacy of authority has been removed, e.g., moving the offices to Bridport or removing the experimenter from the room and giving instructions by phone.

  2. Socialisation -how people are socialised to obey authority from a young age

  3. Gradual commitment,

  4. The presence of ‘buffers: factors that induce empathy

VARIATIONS

  1. Proximity of authority figure: Instructions by telephone

  2. Physical closeness of the learner: The Learner is placed in the same room as the teacher

  3. Prestige of the institution: Conducted in a run-down office building

  4. Role of a rebel: Two other confederates refuse to continue the experiment

  5. Ordinary person as authority: Ordinary individual replaces the experimenter

  6. Voice-feedback condition: Teacher hears the learner's protests

  7. The teacher forces the learner’s hand on the electric plate

ANSWERS

  1. Proximity of authority figure: Instructions by telephone = Legitimacy of authority (authority figure and institution)

  2. Physical closeness of the learner: The Learner is placed in the same room as the teacher = The presence of ‘buffers: factors that induce empathy

  3. Prestige of the institution: Conducted in a run-down office building = Legitimacy of authority (authority figure and institution)

  4. Role of a rebel: Confederates refuse to continue the experiment = Legitimacy of authority (authority figure and institution)

  5. Ordinary person as authority: Ordinary individual replaces the experimenter = Legitimacy of authority (authority figure and institution)

  6. Voice-feedback condition: Teacher hears the learner's protests = The presence of ‘buffers: factors that induce empathy

  7. The teacher forces the learner’s hand on the electric plate = The presence of ‘buffers: factors that induce empathy

  1. Based on Milgram’s theory, did obedience go up or down in the following variations?

2. Estimate a percentage

Provide exact percentages for each variation's impact on obedience levels.

  • Proximity of Authority Figure: Decreased from 65% to 20.5%.

  • Physical Closeness of the Learner: Decreased to 40%.

  • Prestige of the Institution: Dropped to 47.5%.

  • Role of a Rebel: Decreased to 10%.

  • Ordinary Person as Authority: Dropped to 20%.

  • Voice-Feedback Condition: Dropped to 13.5%.

PERCENTAGE OF PARTICIPANTS GOING TO 450 VOLTS

Please Note; The specification asks for a discussion of uniform but uniform is really just “LEGITIMACY OF AUTHORITY”

So you can use the L. Bickman (1974) study on the power of uniforms or any of Milgram’s variations above where the legitimacy of authority have been removed, e.g., moving the offices to Bridport or removing the experimenter from the room and giving instructions by phone.

EVALUATION OF THE VARIATIONS AS APPLIED DIRECTLY TO THE HOLOCAUST

THE PRESENCE OF BUFFERS/THE PROXIMITY OF THE VICTIM

The presence of buffers or moral strain is basically an argument that empathy can win the day, as the closer people get to each other the more they should individualise each other and feel empathy.

In Milgram’s study, some of the participants tried to lessen the learner’s pain by giving the lowest shock or they helped the learner by stressing the correct answer on the memory test and/or only flicking the switches on the shock generator lightly as if this would somehow lessen the pain. Also, when Milgram removed a buffer by making the ‘teacher’ place the ‘learner's hand on the electric plate, and/or the learner was in the same room, levels of disobedience dropped as participants could not ignore the suffering. Zimbardo also found that adding in more buffers, such as by making the ‘learner’ wear a hood and be only referred to by a number rather than their name, caused increased levels of obedience, although this finding could as easily be attributed to deindividuation.

According to Mandel, the same cannot be applied to the holocaust as the proximity and legitimacy of the authority figure in Milgram’s variations had no ecological validity in Nazi Germany. SS soldiers were often alone with their victims and not in the physical presence of their superiors. Moreover, SS soldiers always ensured that all Jews were dead when they were gassed or shot and they displayed severe brutality on those that they ‘caught.’ These actions do not indicate that those involved tried to lessen their victims’ suffering, even when they had a chance to do so.

PRESENCE OF ALLIES

The presence of allies should have reduced the legitimacy of authority. According to Milgram’s findings, as participants used defiance of allies as an opportunity to remove themselves from harming the learner and felt able to do so as there was reduced legitimacy of authority.

David Mandel argued that men were aware that several of their peers had removed themselves from the killing, but only a small minority of men took up the offer to be assigned to other duties. The vast majority continued to kill. Moreover, some Nazis went on killing sprees of their own volition or were cruel without a specific order. The presence of allies in Milgram's experiments, particularly when confederates (participants pretending to be fellow subjects) refused to continue the experiment, acted as a form of social support and solidarity. This reduced the perceived legitimacy of the authority figure and the binding factor of the authority figure's commands. Participants may have felt less isolated and more empowered to resist the authority figure's orders when they observed others doing the same. This social dynamic challenged the strength of the authority's influence and contributed to a decrease in the willingness of participants to administer shocks.

AN EXPERIMENT IS A SNAPSHOT IN TIME

Moreover, the findings do not tell the whole tale. Milgram’s study took place in a single hour, with very little time either to deliberate or talk things over with someone. In most situations, like the Holocaust, the perpetrators had ample time (years) to reflect on their actions, and yet, they still chose to turn up every day. Milgram perhaps highlights only how far we'll go in the heat of the moment.

Not all of Milgram’s variations were unsuccessful.

THE PROXIMITY AND LEGITIMACY OF THE AUTHORITY FIGURE: This was supported by Milgram’s research where he showed that levels of obedience fell when he removed the legitimate authority figure by dressing the experimenter more casually and removing his white coat. In another variation, the observation was moved from the prestigious Ivy League university to a seedy office in a run-down city. The results showed that the participants in the Bridgeport study were less likely to obey because they did not see the researchers as qualified. Moreover, in another variation of Milgram’s experiment, teachers were given orders by telephone, decreasing the perceived presence of the authority figure, which made levels of obedience fall. Bickman also showed how uniform acts as a symbol of authority when he showed participants were more likely to obey a guard than ordinary civilians. This supports the idea that legitimate authority affects obedience as there were drops in the levels of obedience.

Please Note: The specification asks for a discussion of uniforms, but the uniform is really just “LEGITIMACY OF AUTHORITY.”

So you can use the L. Bickman (1974) study on the power of uniforms or any of Milgram’s variations above where the legitimacy of authority has been removed, e.g., moving the offices to Bridport or removing the experimenter from the room and giving instructions by phone.

Counter-arguments use real-life examples of how the power of a situation and the influence of an authority figure can shape a person’s behaviour by removing personal responsibility and morals e.g. conscience and compassion. For example, the Abu Ghraib prison abuse showed many similarities with Milgram’s obedience research.

OTHER RESEARCH

A partial replication of the observation was staged by British illusionist Derren Brown and broadcast on UK's Channel 4 in The Heist (2006).

See this content in the original post

In 2009, Burger was able to receive approval from the institutional review board by modifying several of the observation protocols. Burger found obedience rates virtually identical to those reported by Milgram in 1961–62, even while meeting current ethical regulations of informing participants. In addition, half the replication participants were female, and their rate of obedience was virtually identical to that of the male participants. Burger also included a condition in which participants first saw another participant refuse to continue. However, participants in this condition obeyed at the same rate as participants in the base condition.

In the 2010 French documentary Le Jeu de la Mort (The Game of Death), researchers recreated the Milgram observation with an added critique of reality television by presenting the scenario as a game show pilot. Volunteers were given €40 and told that they would not win any money from the game, as this was only a trial. Only 16 of 80 "contestants" (teachers) chose to end the game before delivering the highest-voltage punishment.

The Discovery Channel aired the "How Evil Are You?" segment of Curiosity on October 30, 2011. The episode was hosted by Eli Roth, who produced results similar to the original Milgram observation though the highest-voltage punishment used was 165 volts, rather than 450 volts. Roth added a segment in which a second person (an actor) in the room would defy the authority ordering the shocks, finding more often than not, the subjects would stand up to the authority figure in this case. 

CULTURAL BIAS:

There have been cross-cultural variations of the Milgram study. These are important because a tendency to obey authority figures might be something they get from their surrounding culture rather than an innate human impulse (found in everyone, everywhere).

  • Meeus & Raaijmakers (1986) found similar results in liberal Holland to what Milgram found in 1960s America. However, this study used a less distressing punishment (insults, not electric shocks).

  • Shanab & Yahya (1978) found similar results to Milgram in a non-Western society - Jordan, in the Middle East

Thomas Blass (2012) reviewed all these studies and found that, on average, American obedience came out 5% lower than non-American studies. This certainly suggests that genocide could happen anywhere. This makes it very important that countries develop democratic institutions in which authority figures are questioned and challenged.

POPULATIONS BIAS: The participants were all white, male working-class. Are the findings generalisable to non-white, females from different social classes?

In observation 8, Milgram used an all-female contingent was used; previously, all participants had been men. Obedience did not significantly differ, though the women communicated experiencing higher levels of stress.

Around the time of the release of “Obedience to Authority in 1973–1974”, a version of the observation was conducted at La Trobe University in Australia. As reported by Perry in her 2012 book Behind the Shock Machine, some of the participants experienced long-lasting psychological effects, possibly due to the lack of proper debriefing by the experimenter.

EVALUATION

INTERNAL VALIDITY ISSUES

Orne and Holland found the notion that Milgram’s participants believed that they could legally execute a normal public member for no apparent, meaningful reason ridiculous. Whichever way you view it (manslaughter, murder, grievous bodily harm), participants were being asked to commit, arguably, the worse social taboo for a crass learning theory that had little social benefit – and “to top it off”, they were in one of the world’s most prestigious universities where being inconspicuous was out of the question.

Moreover, the participants’ disbelief would have been further confounded by the presence of the “experimenter”. Why didn’t he throw the switches himself? The logical conclusion formed by many of the participants would have been that the role of the teacher was unnecessary, and they may have then wondered why they were there - say many critics of Milgram.

Orne and Holland believed that you couldn’t defy the logic of the ordinary man in this way. Moreover, many participants are quite aware of the research restraints imposed by law, e.g., no physical harm. They concluded, that the participants must have played along with Milgram to please him (demand characteristics). Therefore, they didn’t obey an unjust command, and the results are meaningless and lack internal validity. The authors also cite hypnosis research showing that people can't be compelled to actually harm others if it's really clear the victims will be injured.

Critics of Orne and Holland counter-argued that Milgram’s participants were displaying actual behaviour as they had shown real visible signs of stress and disturbance. (sweating, trembling hesitance, etc). Also, all participants questioned the authority figure, tried to leave the observation at some stage and 35% even actually quit.  Critics say these factors show that participants did believe the experiment was causing harm to the learner, so why bother with the histrionics and just go through the motions?

However, in a replication of Milgram’s study, Orne and Holland found that 75% of the participants stated that they assumed that the victim really wasn't hurt in the study on follow-up. More importantly, in a study where subjects were told beforehand that something “fishy” was in the test, they still performed the same as the control group and had a similar stress reaction as well. "Thus, in the final post-observation inquiry it became clear that much of the subject's disturbed behaviour occurred because the individual felt that such behaviour was demanded by the situation in the experiment." "That the subject will in an observation carry out behaviours that appear destructive either to himself or others reflects more upon his willingness to trust the experimenter and the experimental context than on what he would do outside of the experimental situation. “Orne and Holland

Charles Sheridan and Richard King (at the University of Missouri and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively) hypothesised that some of Milgram's subjects may have suspected that the victim was faking, so they repeated the observation with a real victim: a "cute, fluffy puppy" who was given real, albeit apparently harmless, electric shocks. Their findings were similar to those of Milgram: 7 out of 13 of the male subjects and all 13 of the females obeyed throughout. Many subjects showed high levels of distress during the experiment, and some openly wept. In addition, Sheridan and King found that the duration for which the shock button was pressed decreased as the shocks got higher, meaning that for higher shock levels, subjects were more hesitant.

The issue of internal validity remains unsolved.

EXTERNAL VALIDITY

Many other criticisms of Milgram focus on his study’s lack of mundane realism; for example, nobody in real life would ever “electric shock” a student because of trivial learning errors, so how does the research apply to everyday situations?

Milgram’s counterargument was that it does not matter if the study has mundane realism if it has ecological validity, e.g., can the results be applied to the real-life situations people face daily? Milgram is convinced his results could be applied to events in the Holocaust.

Many defenders of Milgram use the Hofling “obedient Nurses” study as an example of how Milgram’s study did have ecological validity because, in real life, the nurses in the Hofling study obeyed telephone instructions from an unknown doctor to over-prescribe an unknown tablet; thus, breaking many cardinal sins of the medical profession.

There are two things wrong with using the Hofling study as evidence for Milgram having ecological validity.

Firstly, when the Hofling study was replicated with a known medicine, the nurses did not over-prescribe the tablets. This shows that previous results were due more to ignorance than blind obedience. If this is the case, then the Hofling study cannot support ecological validity as its internal validity is seriously flawed.

Secondly and more importantly, Milgram was not investigating obedience per se. He didn’t want to know about everyday obedience and/or why people obeyed reasonable orders. He wanted to know if the obedience alibi was true, for example, if ordinary people could obey unjust/evil commands - like the orders that SS soldiers claimed were given to them during the Holocaust. The Hofling study, however, does not, in any way, investigate unjust obedience, it is perplexing that it is so often used to support Milgram’s study.

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

Milgram’s widow donated all Milgram’s materials (papers, videos, and audio recordings) after his death in 1984, they remained largely untouched for years, until Yale’s library staff began to digitise all the materials in the early 2000s. Researchers found some glaring issues with Milgram’s data. Among the accusations were that: the supervisors went off script in their prods to the teachers, that some of the volunteers were aware that the setup was a hoax, and that others weren’t debriefed on the whole thing until months later.

In 2012 Australian psychologist Gina Perry investigated Milgram's data and writings and concluded that Milgram had manipulated the results and that there was a "troubling mismatch between (published) descriptions of the experiment and evidence of what actually transpired." She wrote that "only half of the people who undertook the observation fully believed it was real and of those, 66% disobeyed the experimenter" She described her findings as "an unexpected outcome" that "leaves social psychology in a difficult situation as methodologically, there have been many problems with Milgram’s research some psychologists feel that the textbook descriptions of his research need to be re-examined.”

However, in a book review critical of Gina Perry's findings, Russell and Picard take issue with Perry for not mentioning that "there have been well over a score, not just several, replications or slight variations on Milgram’s basic observational procedure, and these have been performed in many different countries, several different settings and using different types of victims. And most, although certainly not all of these experiments have tended to lend weight to Milgram’s original findings., the participants were American.