OPINION THE BIG IDEA
Just obeying orders?
Ordinary people can commit atrocities simply by following orders, iconic experiments from the 1960s concluded. But this notion of the “banality of evil” is wrong, argue psychologists Alexander Haslam and Stephen Reicher s agnum Ph oto agnum rick Zachmann/rick M t Pa
28 | NewScientist | 13 September 2014 For more opinion articles, visit newscientist.com/opinion
IF YOU only know about one research Nazis and the banality of evil programme in psychology, chances are it is Stanley Milgram’s “shock experiments”. In 1961, Adolf Eichmann, one of main lesson to be gleaned passive pen-pusher. Rather, he Conducted in the early 1960s at Yale the chief architects of the “final from his life was one of “the was a committed Nazi who took University, the participants were asked by an solution to the Jewish question”, fearsome, word-and-thought- on organisational challenges “Experimenter” to take on the role of “Teacher” was sentenced to death for the defying banality of evil”. with fervour and imagination. and administer an escalating series of electric murder of millions of people in Yet while this concept of the If he thought orders were not shocks to a “Learner” in the next room when Nazi extermination camps. banality of evil proved highly sufficiently “on message” he he chose the wrong answers in a memory test. Prior to his trial he had been influential – not least because would disobey them, and where This was supposedly part of a study into the portrayed in the media and by it gelled closely with Stanley none had been given, as was effect of punishment on learning. psychiatrists as a sadistic and Milgram’s account of obedience often the case, he would still The participants didn’t know that the shocks, psychopathic monster. But as to authority – in recent years “work towards the Führer” in and the cries they elicited from the Learner, political theorist Hannah Arendt historians have cast doubt on a creative way. weren’t genuine. Nevertheless, many acceded watched him give his defence its validity. A crucial point is that he did to the Experimenter’s requests and proved at the trial, she found that this A key problem is that Arendt this because he was convinced willing to deliver shocks labelled 450 volts picture did not hold true. On the mainly attended those parts of that the cause he was advancing to the powerless Learner (who was in fact a contrary, she was struck by the Eichmann’s trial at which his was right. The truly frightening stooge employed by Milgram to play this role). fact that Eichmann (pictured defence worked hard to present thing about Eichmann and his ilk The power of these studies was that they below) came across as a normal him as innocuous, precisely to is not that they didn’t know what appeared to provide startling evidence of our bureaucrat who had simply mitigate blame. they were doing, but that they capacity for blind obedience – evidence that been following orders – without The prosecution, however, knew full well what they were inhumanity springs not necessarily from question, imagination or insight. had presented compelling doing and believed their actions deep-seated hatred or pathology, but rather Famously, she claimed that the evidence that Eichmann was no to be justified, worthy and noble. from a much more mundane inclination to obey the orders of those in authority, however unreasonable or brutal these may be. This was In these, the proportion of participants who orders prove to be the least effective means the substance of the “agentic state theory” that kept on shocking to the bitter end varied from of securing obedience. We see this because Milgram developed to explain his findings 0 to 100 per cent. So it cannot be assumed Milgram scripted a number of verbal “prods” in his 1974 book Obedience to Authority. that people always obey. Indeed, as Milgram for the Experimenter to use if participants Importantly, it is an analysis that chimes with himself recognised in the title of an early were reticent about continuing, such as: political theorist Hannah Arendt’s notion of publication, these are studies of disobedience “You have no other choice, you must the “banality of evil”, which she famously as well as obedience. continue”. Yet almost every time this prod developed after observing the trial of the Next, even where there was obedience, it was used, participants refused to go on. So Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann (see “Nazis was far from blind. While participant Teachers whatever else the studies might show, the and the banality of evil”, above right). attended to the demands of the Experimenter, one thing they don’t show is that we have Milgram’s studies are influential to this they were well aware of the apparent suffering an inherent tendency to obey orders. day, but are also some of the most unethical of the Learner. Consequently, they were torn So what do they show? Putting the strands ever conducted in psychology. They could between these two voices, as film footage of of evidence together, we argue that the never be carried out in a similar form today Milgram’s experiment shows. What is more, balance between obedience and disobedience due to the extreme stress suffered by the hinges upon whether participants prioritise participants (see “Never again”, page 31). the voice of the Experimenter over that of the Ironically, these ethical problems have served Learner or vice versa. This, in turn, depends only to consolidate the influence of Milgram’s upon whether they identify more with the agentic state explanation. The impossibility of cause of science or more with the plight of replication has made it hard for an alternative the ordinary citizen. In these terms, the account to gain traction. problem with orders is that they undermine Nevertheless an alternative account is identification with the science by positioning needed. Not only have recent historical the Experimenter above and apart from studies led researchers to question Arendt’s participants, rather than as a collaborator in claims that Eichmann and his ilk simply went a common cause. And what this means is that along thoughtlessly with the orders of their those who shock do so not because they are superiors, but reanalysis of Milgram’s work unaware of the consequences of their actions, IS has also led social psychologists to cast B but because they know what they are doing O R serious doubt on the claim we are somehow C and believe it to be worthy. Rather than being
programmed to obey authority. mann/ blindly obedient, they are engaged followers. tt
To start with, Milgram didn’t conduct just Be Moreover, participants are engaged one “obedience” study. He conducted over 25, because Milgram expended a great deal varying features of the set-up such as the Pathological, or just a workaday bureaucrat? of effort to engage them. In particular, he proximity of the Experimenter and Learner. The trial of Nazi chief Adolf Eichmann worked hard to persuade them that they >
13 September 2014 | NewScientist | 29 OPINION THE BIG IDEA
The prison experiment were contributing to vitally important work which would bring about progress in scientific ilgram Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies appear to understanding. In every detail he laboured provide compelling evidence that normal people to give the studies scientific authority, right might be willing to kill a stranger simply if ordered down to the meticulously designed fake esy A lexandra M esy to do so by someone in authority (see main story). shock generator (“Type ZLB”, supposedly t ur Co
This aligns with conclusions typically drawn made by the Dyson Instrument Company). y/ t from another classic piece of social psychological A 2012 paper we published in Perspectives
research: the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE). on Psychological Science provides preliminary niversi
Conducted in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo, this U ale involved randomly assigning students to be “Within days, ‘guards’ were either guards or prisoners within a mock prison. The objective was to observe how social subjecting the ‘prisoners’ rchives, Y A rchives, and s
relations within and between the two groups to degrading treatments” pt unfolded in the absence of an obviously
malevolent authority. As in Milgram’s studies, the support for this alternative analysis and is anuscri results proved shocking: within a few days, the again rooted in Milgram’s own findings. In guards were subjecting prisoners to a host of this, we asked people to read descriptions of degrading and abusive treatments. This led to different variants of his study and then to the study being terminated after just six days. indicate how much they would identify with ers, 1927-1993 (incl.). M (incl.). 1927-1993 ers, p
the Experimenter and the Learner in each. We a DESCENT INTO TYRANNY found that relative identification – the level of
Zimbardo concluded that people descend into identification with the Experimenter minus p ilgram tyranny because they conform naturally and identification with the Learner – was highly anley M anley
unthinkingly to the toxic roles and scripts that correlated with the levels of shock that St accompany particular contexts – so that, for Milgram’s participants actually delivered. example, a brutal prison will inevitably create But while it is one thing to reinterpret elicit similar reactions to Milgram’s original. brutal guards. Like Milgram’s work, this analysis old data, it is quite another to produce new Initial findings show how participants orient to is closely aligned with the “banality of evil” thesis data to test alternative explanations. And in both the Learner and the Experimenter, trying devised by political theorist Hannah Arendt. Milgram’s arena, this intellectual challenge is to mitigate “harm” to the former even as they But there are strong grounds for questioning exacerbated by profound ethical constraints. continue to obey the latter. For instance, even these conclusions. Although Zimbardo presents To overcome these challenges we have been though they are not aware of it, participants try his findings as evidence of “blind conformity” to conducting a broad programme of research to help the virtual-reality Learner by saying role, it is apparent that he gave his guards clear using multiple methods, none of which would the correct answers to the memory task more guidance on how he expected them to behave be conclusive on its own. However, they loudly when offering them a choice of answers. when briefing them for the study. “You can create combine to tell a coherent and powerful story. Second, we have developed an online in the prisoners feelings of boredom, a sense of First, in conjunction with Mel Slater, analogue of the paradigm in which people fear to some degree, you can create a notion of a specialist in virtual environments at perform an increasingly aversive task, in arbitrariness, that their life is totally controlled University College London, we have conducted which they are asked to select pejorative by us, by the system, you, me…”. On this basis studies using a virtual-reality version of terms to describe progressively more pleasant we have argued that the behaviour of those Milgram’s set-up which has been shown to groups, ranging from the Ku Klux Klan to guards was not the result of blind conformity, but the result of engaged followership that flowed Stanley Milgram (left) from identification with Zimbardo’s leadership. devised his “shock When we revisited Zimbardo’s paradigm in our experiments” (above) own BBC Prison study in 2002, we found that in to test our capacity for the absence of clear direction from us, “guards” blind obedience showed no natural tendency to be brutal, and in fact failed altogether to identify with their role. However, towards the end of our study we did see that a group of new guards proved willing to try to implement a novel regime founded upon more authoritarian lines. However it was not conformity that brought them to this point. As edux/eyevine
in the SPE, it was creative leadership by a core R T/ / NY of “true believers” that was critical to recruiting o some participants to enforce and others to mer Ro acquiesce in a new, more punitive system. o b rad i L
30 | NewScientist | 13 September 2014 For more opinion articles, visit newscientist.com/opinion
NEVER AGAIN
Milgram’s psychological studies are on most lists ammunition for his critics: “I observed a mature and of the most unethical ever done. Concentration- initially poised businessman enter the laboratory camp survivor and child psychologist Bruno smiling and confident. Within 20 minutes he was Bettelheim went so far as to claim that they reduced to a twitching, stuttering wreck.” were “in line with the human experiments of the Nazis”. What makes them so notorious? long-TERM HARM Some researchers speculate that the real harm to INFORMED CONSENT participants may have been in the long term, but the A basic principle of research is that participants evidence is mixed. While 7 per cent said they found the should know what they are letting themselves in for. experiments upsetting, the great majority said they In Milgram’s case people thought they were taking were “glad” or “very glad” to have participated. part in a learning study. The electric shocks came as a complete surprise and people found themselves Social Harm trapped in a nightmarish dilemma. Contemporary Finally, studies should not endorse forms of belief ethics committees do allow some level of necessary that legitimise discriminatory or harmful acts towards deception in studies, but only if an ordinary person is others. The archives show that Milgram put people unlikely to be upset when the deception is revealed. at ease by telling them that what they had done was noble in helping to advance scientific understanding. In SHORT-term HARM this way, he was promoting a belief system which says Participants should not be exposed to undue physical it is acceptable to inflict suffering in the name of a good or mental distress during a study. Milgram’s own cause (in this case, science). So he might have alleviated descriptions in this regard provide powerful individual harm at the cost of doing social harm. a family walking the park. In a series of in context, but without this having negative upcoming documentary, Shock Room, also studies, we consistently find that increasing consequences for their identity outside of that explores the factors which determine whether identification with science leads people to context. We are thus able to examine behaviour participants go one way or the other. This, persist longer at the task. Moreover, the in extreme situations but in an ethical manner. we hope, will reveal to audiences overlooked higher-status the science is perceived to be, In December 2013, we ran a series of dimensions of Milgram’s paradigm and give the greater the obedience: participants prove replications of Milgram’s studies using this them a new perspective on the psychology of more obedient if the research is understood technique (the results will soon be published obedience and tyranny (also see “The prison to be advancing understanding of “cognitive in PLoS One). We found that the actors experiment”, opposite). neuroscience” rather than “social behaviour”. behaved almost exactly as Milgram’s original One thing, however, is certain. Whether This evidence accords with Milgram’s own participants had. In particular, they went as you agree with Milgram or not, or accept our musings at the time he was conducting his far as the original participants, employed “engaged followership” theory, there are few studies. In his unpublished experimental similar strategies (for example, emphasising issues in psychology that are of greater social notebook he reflects that “the subjects have the correct answers), and responded in the significance. These are not just a matter of come to the laboratory to form a relationship same way to the Experimenter’s prods. the academic understanding of authority, with the experimenter, a specifically obedience and genocide. “Obedience” has submissive relationship in the interest of “Our findings raise long served as an alibi for those involved in advancing science. They have not come to form atrocities, and it is routinely articulated in a relationship with the [Learner], and it is this uncomfortable questions the defence: “It wasn’t my fault, I was only lack of relationship in the one direction and about misuse of science” obeying orders.” In challenging what “we all the real relationship in the other that produces know” about Milgram, we believe this defence the results.” This raises uncomfortable Moreover, when we directly measured is no longer tenable. Atrocity, we contend, questions about the ease with which “scientific identification, we found a clear relationship always involves a choice of engagements, and progress” can be used to justify noxious ends. between relative identification with the we are always accountable for our choices. n Third, and most ambitiously, we have science and the level of shock that was given. applied an innovative technique in which There is one further big advantage of this S. Alexander Haslam is a professor of psychology at professional actors assume a character and technique. We now not only have the data to the University of Queensland in St Lucia, Australia. are then put in a novel situation – in this case, support the notion of engaged followership, Stephen Reicher is a professor of psychology at Milgram’s obedience set-up. This method, but also film – film that highlights not just the University of St Andrews, UK. This article developed by Kathryn Millard at Macquarie obedience but also disobedience (unlike was co-written with film-maker Kathryn Millard, a University, Australia, draws on a rich tradition Milgram’s classic 1965 documentary film of professor of screen at Macquarie University in New of realist film theory and practice. Our his experiments, Obedience, which has been South Wales, Australia, and post-doctoral researcher argument is that actors are able to inhabit that shown on television many times and seen Megan Birney at St Andrews. Millard’s documentary, character and behave as that character would by virtually every psychology student). Our Shock Room, will be released this year
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