Transcript Obedience to Authority The New York psychologist Stanley Milgram (1963) was impressed by the fact that so many people in Germany showed obedience.

Obedience to Authority
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?
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?
Contributor
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Obedience to Authority
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.
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?
© POSbase 2005
Obedience to Authority
Milgram conducted the following experiment:
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“.
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Obedience to Authority
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.
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.
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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
300V
15V
420V
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
Slight
Shock
Moderate
Shock
Strong
Shock
Very
Strong
Shock
Intense
Shock
Extreme Danger: XXX
Intensity Severe
Shock
Shock
lever
If the learner presses the lever (e.g., 300 V)
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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.
© POSbase 2005
Obedience to Authority
The learner was instructed to give answers
according to a schedule of approximately
three wrong answers to one correct answer.
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.
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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
(Commits an
error)
Experimenter
Pound
on the
wall!
What now?
Wrong!
Please go on
Learner
Teacher
(mock
participant)
(real
participant)
Shock generator
Separation Wall (learner invisible,
no vocal feedback)
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Obedience to Authority
Question: What do you believe, how
many of the 100 participants went up to
the upper end of the scale – 450 Volts?
Over 60% of the participants
went to the highest level: 450 Volt!
100% went up to 300 Volt!
© POSbase 2005
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).
© POSbase 2005
Obedience to Authority
Most 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 Authority
I 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.
© POSbase 2005
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.
© POSbase 2005
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.
© POSbase 2005
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?
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