Examining the Impact of Authority on Obedience

Background

There are many instances where any layman or any student of history would wonder why dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini managed to influence their military and citizenry to commit atrocious acts. Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist at Yale, having the same set of questions that most people have regarding dictators, embraced an empirical approach. The experiments he conducted in the early 1960s were meant to help him understand why different people in history followed the orders given by bad leaders while human beings are naturally rational in all the actions they make a decision to undertake.

The concern of this report, having sourced two NPR interviews about The Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment, is to analyze the effect of authority on obedience and how people act when subjected to authority (NPR Staff, 2004). Common themes from the two interviews will be drawn to make it fathomable why people are obedient to authority even when acting out of their rationality and desires. The analysis within the report will make known why people under the authority of a dictator act out of fear or the desire to seem cooperative.

Research Questions

• Could it be that people who committed atrocities during history were only following orders?
• Have the atrocities in history been due to the sadistic personalities of the individuals involved, or was it due to the environment?

Methodology

Grounded theory is a qualitative research method that seeks to come up with a theory or explanation grounded in empirical information. In the case of Milgram’s experiment, grounded theory can be utilized to conduct data analysis and come up with a theory that gives an explanation of the behaviour of the participants.

To utilize grounded theory, the initial step is to gather information tied to Milgram’s experiment, like experiment transcripts, responses of participants, and observations by Milgram. The second step is to review the information and find out the primary concepts or themes that are emergent, referred to as open coding (Charmaz & Thornberg, 2021). Regarding the case of Milgram, a couple of key concepts that can be considered include authority, obedience, power, responsibility, and morality.

The next step is called axial coding, which centers on grouping the open codes into categories grounded on their relationship to each other. For instance, categories that may stem from Milgram’s experiment revolve around the factors which influence obedience, the role of authority in shaping behaviour, the effect of the situation on behaviour, and the feelings of the participants on morality and responsibility.

The final step is selective coding, which involves selecting the core category that best explains the phenomenon being studied. In the case of Milgram’s experiment, the core category that may emerge is the concept of obedience to authority (Charmaz & Thornberg, 2021). The theory would explain how the participants’ obedience was influenced by various factors, such as the perceived legitimacy of the authority figure, the proximity of the authority figure, and the presence of social pressure.

The theory may also identify sub-categories that contribute to the overall concept of obedience to authority, such as the impact of situational factors like proximity and social pressure and the individual factors like personality and personal values.

Discussion of Common Themes

From the two interviews conducted, it is evident that common themes in human psychology emerge. These revolve around using incentives, coercion, a guarantee for anonymity, quick abuse of power, physical abuse, prodding, and psychological abuse.

The Use of Incentives

In Milgram’s experiment, the financial incentive utilized was that participants were offered 4.5 USD just for participation. As such, all the participants expected that they would earn some money after they treated the student questionably, answering the questions. Milgram’s experiment bragged statistical validity because he sourced subjects from all walks of life, showing that an individual does not necessarily need to be a soldier or have any military background to be capable of torture. Notably, incentives in the experiment conducted by Milgram played the same role in the experiment carried out by other psychologists interested in an operant condition where money is a positive reinforcement.

In the Zimbardo experiment, the situation was very similar because the guards were expected to play the role of warden for 14 days and to be given 15 dollars a day. While it was a rule that prisoners should not be put in solitary confinement for more than one hour or hit, it did not take more than a day before a guard hit a prisoner with his baton stick. Moreover, the guards broke into every cell, stripped all the prisoners under their care stark naked, took all the beds out, coerced all the ringleaders of the prisoner rebellion to solitary confinement, and generally started to harass and intimidate all the prisoners. It is plausible to hypothesize that the guards would have been reluctant to act in some ways if the experimenter had utilized no money in the experiment.

Coercion

Note that in Milgram’s classic empirical trials on matters of obedience, the role of the experimenter was to instruct all volunteer participants to initiate allegedly painful shocks to a third party. The studies in question concentrated on the readiness of participants to be in alignment with authority and obey coercive instructions to go ahead with harmful actions. In real life, atrocities such as genocides have happened because ordinary people who would otherwise be perceived as well received instructions from mean leaders in power. Examples include Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, who had fascism and tendencies that demonstrated no remorse.

Stanford’s prison experiment was also driven by coercion. The Stanford experimenters were always clear that their aim was to come up with a temporary approximation of the type of abrasive, degrading and totalitarian institution discussed in Erving Goffman’s influential study asylums (NPR Staff, 2004). The theme of coercion is relevant in this case because the designers of the experiment explicitly set out to bring about feelings of power (for the guards) and powerlessness (for the inmates), of control and oppression, of being satisfied and frustrated, of arbitrary rule and resistance to people in authority, of enjoying the status and remaining anonymous, and about masculinity and emasculation.

A guarantee of Anonymity

The true identity of the people who participated in Milgram’s experiments has and will never be revealed. The details given about the participants are very vague. Precisely, it is stated that the participants were 40 males aged 20 to 50 years. The second available text clarifies that their jobs ranged from unskilled to professional in New Haven. Another important detail is that they were paid 4.5 dollars for showing up. At the very start of the experiment, the experimenter introduced them to a different participant that would fit in the role of a confederate to the experimenter.

On the flip side, while it is arguable that the Stanford Prison Experiment went against ethical research principles (such as informed consent), the experimenter maintained the participants’ confidentiality (NPR Staff, 2004). At the start of the experiment, the participants were guaranteed that their identity would remain confidential and only at the predisposition of the investigators involved in the study. The details of the experiment demonstrated that most people are willing to commit atrocious acts, provided that the rest of the world will not know of their actions. It is for this reason that the executioners in the holocaust were comfortably predisposing the Jews to gas chambers.

Quick Abuse of Power

Both in Miligram’s experiment and Stanford Prison Experiment, the participants in a position of power (the teacher and the guard, respectively) were very quick to go to extremes without a need to do so (NPR Staff, 2004). In their right minds, the people that played the role of the teacher knew that upping the voltage to levels of 450 would be lethal. Despite this awareness, 79 per cent went on to the shock generator’s end at 450 volts. This empirical fact can be interpreted to mean that 79% of the human population can be influenced into inhumanly treating others.

In Stanford Prison Experiment, it is clear that the guards were very quick to break the rules regarding the treatment of inmates. Twenty-four hours had barely elapsed when the guards broke into every cell, stripped the prisoners naked, took their beds away from them, forced the leaders of the prisoner rebellion into solitary confinement, and generally started to direct harassment and intimidation the prisoners. All the things the guards did went against the “rulebook” they had been given before starting the experiment. Therefore, the researchers noted that those who participated in the experiment easily became drunk with power.

Physical abuse

In Milgram’s experiment, the participants who played the role of the teacher were told to shock the “students” with an increase of 15 volts for all the answers they got wrong (NPR Staff, 2013). Considering that electric shock is a form of physical abuse, it is appalling that none of the participants had no qualms about using extreme voltage amounts to shock the people on the other end of the line. Note that the maximum voltage was 450, and more than 50% of the population went ahead to shock the other individual, provided they were instructed to do so.

Notably, at the start of the Stanford Prison Experiment, the participants assigned the role of the guard were prohibited or warned from being violent or keeping criminals in solitary confinement units for more than an hour. However, it was less than 24 hours before a guard hit a prisoner and less than 48 hours before all the guards took away the inmates’ beds, stripped them naked, and placed most of them in solitary confinement. The guards’ behaviour was a testament that most people are capable of violence when they get the chance and when directed to do so.

Prodding

When prodded, most teachers were very quick to punish their students. They did not consider the lethality of the punishments. The scenario was a classic case of giving too much power to the authority that instructed them to torture the person in the other room. Through the Milgram experiment, it became apparent that prodding has always been a factor in cases where subjects of a leader act out of character and mistreat and torture others around them (NPR Staff, 2013). From a psychological standpoint, prodding has to stem from a position of power where the person issuing commands is well respected.

In the Stanford Prison Experiment, the guards felt they had a mandate over the prisoners. While prodding was very little to none in the Stanford Prison Experiment, the people in the position of guards handled the prisoners in a manner that was otherwise offensive and one that suggested they were under duress to exert authority. In other words, it is as if the guards took it upon themselves to treat the prisoners as they pleased. Similar to real-life cases where rogue soldiers are sent to harass the citizenry, what often transpires is that stress makes them go out of their way and treat their peers in the most negative ways.

Psychological abuse

In the Milgram experiment, the issue of psychology is twofold. Specifically, both the teachers and the arbitrary students suffered the possibility of experiencing a lot of depression during and after the trauma that defined the experiment (NPR Staff, 2013). Torturing an individual to the point of death is a traumatic event that causes a lot of stress the first time. After the alleged death of the students after having been predisposed to 450 volts, it is possible that the experience interfered with the teachers’ mental health, especially in reenactments. To this effect, Milgram made a point of checking on his subject twelve months after the experiment.

Second, in the Stanford Prison Experiment, it is possible that the mental health of the participants was compromised, especially because both the guards and the prisoners in the underground cells were in a confined environment that never allowed them to come out. It is important to put into consideration that the prisoners and the guards became agitated after staying in the prison environment because it was a large solitary confinement unit. Note that the guards were instructed not to put any prisoner in “the hole” or “the SHU” (Solitary Housing Unit) for more than one hour because of its negative effects on mental health. As such, the negative effects of the experiment after the sixth day are explainable.

Further Analysis

The entirety of Milgram’s experiment sought to find out the extent to which individuals would obey authority, even if it meant causing another person harm. Precisely, the intention was to find out how far human beings can go in the name of the authority. Note that the shocks increased in intensity with every mistake, and irrespective of the apparent pain and distress expressed by the learners, a majority of the participants went on to obey the orders of the experimenter. The experiment by Milgram brought forth relevant ethical concerns and gave a lot of contributions to our understanding of obedience and authority in social psychology.

Discussion

Any enthusiast of psychology can gather many invaluable insights from the experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram. A closer look at the studies shows that a good number of participants fit the mould of blind conformists. Only a section of the guards in the studies conducted through the prison experiment treated the prisoners badly simply because they were ingenious in responding to the initial suggestion that they could evoke feelings in the prisoners, like fear or boredom. On the flip side, in many of the studies carried out by Milgram, many subjects declined to execute the greatest level of shock that was allowed. A majority listened to the experimenter’s commands the moment he justified their actions with respect to benefiting science-and. Even then, they were shattered (NPR Staff, 2013).

Bran’s new studies are beginning to factor empirical teeth into various observations. Reicher and Haslam conducted a new set of Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment, and it was televised by the British Broadcasting Service in the year 2002, demonstrating that participants never automatically followed their assigned responsibilities and only acted with respect to group membership in the event that they identified with the group (NPR Staff, 2004). They are carrying out other related studies at the moment, and thus far, new perspectives posit that there is a need for more research raising questions on the idea that heinous crimes are always banal.

The questions raised by Zimbardo and Milgram must be examined because the debate is germane to an assortment of issues in the field of psychology. Some of the issues in question include processes and dynamics, group influence, and the responsibility of the individual in a diversity of domains. The two iconic research sets by Milgram and Zimbardo still do not answer the question of whether it is given that humans can be prodded into harming others (NPR Staff, 2013). This is especially because Milgram discovered that the participants were never willing to direct seemingly lethal electric shocks within the context of a scientific experiment. In contrast, Philip Zimbardo showed that multiple individuals given the prison guard role always went ahead to brutally treat prisoners.

The individuals in Milgram and Zimbardo’s experiment who refused to carry out unreasonable commands gave hope to psychologists like Stephen D. Reicher, PhD the University of St. Andrews and S. Alexander Haslam from the University of Queensland. In an essay written in November by PLOS Biology, evidence is provided by history, from Milgram’s and Zimbardo’s work, and their research demonstrating that individuals that tend to be quick to align to authoritative figures are not robots or sheep, but instead individuals that devotedly identify with a leader or group’s agenda.

Overall, it is worth mentioning that the experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo have been very eye-opening in psychology. While the results in both cases are inconclusive, they open up many possibilities in research (Haslam & Reicher, 2012). The only thing hindering further research regarding the questions posed by both Philip and Stanley is the ethicality of the research methodologies. The lack of ethics stems from the use of deception, limited protection for all the participants that took part, and unnecessary pressure from experimenters to go on even after asking to halt, interfering with the rights of participants to withdraw.

References

Charmaz, K., & Thornberg, R. (2021). The pursuit of quality in grounded theory. Qualitative research in psychology, 18(3), 305-327.

Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2012). Contesting the “nature” of conformity: What Milgram and Zimbardo’s studies really show. PLoS Biology, 10(11), e1001426.

NPR Staff. (2013, August 28). Taking a closer look at Milgram’s shocking obedience study. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2013/08/28/209559002/taking-a-closer-look-at-milgrams-shocking-obedience-study

NPR Staff. (2004, May 4). Prison psychology and the Stanford prison experiment. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2004/05/04/1870756/prison-psychology-and-the-stanford-prison-experiment

Appendix

Table of Methodology in Milgram’s Experiment Using Grounded Theory

Table of Common Themes in Milgram’s Experiment and Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment