Just Do As Your Told

Picture of Kony.
Image found here.

Throughout history, there are countless examples of groups of people under a ruler that do horrible things.  Think back to the tragedies that have occurred as a result of people following Hitler, Stalin, and Kony—to name a few.  These ruthless rulers have all been able to lead their people to do terrible things.  Why and how is that?  I would like to think that people are inherently good with ethics, morals, and a conscious; however, learning about and observing people performing such unspeakable actions makes me question that.  It seems that people often do as they’re told, especially when ordered by a person of authority.  This has been engrained in most people’s minds ever since they were children.  At a young age, children are instructed to do what their parent(s) or guardian(s) command, and this obedience is continually imbedded into their minds throughout childhood by teachers and additional authoritative figures.  So, does being taught to obey authority as a child lead them to later be compliant to the point where they will perform actions that go against their morals if ordered by an authoritative figure?

Thomas Hobbes.
Image found here.

Thomas Hobbes, a seventeenth-century political philosopher and author of the 1651 book Leviathan, addresses this issue to some extent.  Hobbes believes in an absolute ruler—one who can do whatever he/she wants.  Although his philosophy states that a ruler is made up of his/her people, the ruler can—and usually is—stronger than his/her subjects and the ruler’s legitimacy is granted by the subjects.  The ruler is viewed as a “mortal god” who has complete power.  Hobbes believes this to be effective because power struggles and conflict where the power is held is avoided by not having multiple power holders.  For this reason, he asserted that divided power is therefore the worst possible thing.  His philosophy states that people voluntarily give up their rights to an absolute authority of government.  In fact, may argue that Hobbes’ philosophy often times comes close to Stalinism.

With the hopes of being able to explain how an event like the Holocaust could happen, Milgram conducted a series of obedience experiments in the 1960s.  He wanted to see what would happen when people are faced with morally questionable orders and if people would comply with such a horrific program.  The way the experiment worked was as follows:  A person was placed in a room with an authoritative figure wearing a white lab coat.  In the next room was an amiable older man with a heart condition, strapped to a chair.  The job of the subject—who is the person originally placed in the room with the authoritative figure—is to test the memory of the older man through word pairs.  Each time the older man got the incorrect answer, the subject was to administer a shock—with each shock increasing for every mistake.  At 115 volts, the older man complains of pain; at 145 volts, he worries out loud about his heart; he demands to be let out at 175 volts; 240 volts leads to him screaming in agony; and, he falls silent at 300 volts.  I want you to now think for a moment:  Where would you stop?  Would you not proceed at all?  Stop at first complaint of pain?  Stop at agonized screams?  Stop when the victim refuses to answer?  Or go all the way to the end, as instructed by the experimenter?  Now, what percentage of people do you think would go all the way?

This experiment led to shocking results.  As it turns out, 65% of Yale undergrads were willing to go to the end, while 60% of New Haven residents go to the end.  In some countries, such as South Africa, approximately 88% of the people would go to the end.  Moreover, women complied to the same degree as men.  I’m sure many of you reading this have already heard of this experiment, and numerous studies replicated Milgram’s throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Now, I’m guessing most of you reading this post were shocked by the results of this experiment when you first learned of them—whether it was now or previously.  So, why is there a discrepancy between what people say they would do and what people actually end up doing?  Why are people willing to follow such a coldblooded leader as Hitler and contribute to the Holocaust?  One explanation, known as the agentic shift, explains that when people are placed in a position where there’s some sort of authority above them, they lose their individuality and become an agent for executing the desires of the leader(s).  Furthermore, it’s important to note that it’s not just other people that we obey.  We also tend to obey systems, situations, roles, and expectations.  Other similar studies have been done illustrating this.

 Video of the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo.

This is an example of people obeying situations and roles.

To close, why do you think we’re so ready to obey authority when placed in a morally questionable situation?  Do you agree with the theory of agentic shift?  If not, why then do people think they would act differently than they actually do?  What about all the people in Milgram’s study that did not comply with the authority figure?  What separates them from the rest?