Would you obey an order that felt wrong? Why good people commit evil deeds.
It feels wrong to write my usual article on career success or productivity at such a distressing time. Instead, let’s see what we can learn from a famous psychological study on why some of us are blindly obedient to others, even if it means acting against our own moral compass.
Stanley Milgram was a professor at Yale in the 1960s, researching human behaviour. He was particularly interested in why some of us engage in immoral acts when told to so by an authority figure. In a series of unforgettable experiments, which would never have been authorised today, he recruited research volunteers into his lab and allowed them to see, through a one-way mirror, a person hooked up to a variety of electrodes. A research assistant sat with the volunteer and explained that the electrodes would administer a small shock and then asked the volunteer to press the button to activate them. At first the shocks weren’t painful, causing at most a mild reaction. But then the research assistant told the volunteer to move the dial and increase the intensity. Despite being told that they could seriously harm the poor person on the other side of the mirror, in nearly 70% of cases the volunteer gave the fullest level of shock, 450 volts, when instructed to do so.
What does this tell us? Milgram’s conclusion was that we fall prey to ‘blind obedience’ – put to the test we do evil things just because a person in a position of authority instructs us to. The volunteers chose wrong over right because evolution teaches us that obedience and conformity keep us safe, whatever the moral cost.
What would you do?
Most of us think that we would have behaved differently and not followed the instruction. Are you sure? The volunteers were just ordinary college students and nearly two thirds of them complied to the authority of the man in the white coat. Perhaps people were more respectful of authority back then, although students in the 1960s weren’t known for respecting the hierarchy.
The participants might have felt committed to the experiment and felt they had to see it through. Maybe they had de-personalised the poor wired up person in their minds, so it was easier not to feel empathy.
Professor Alex Haslam from the University of Queensland, has talked about the creative act of followership, resulting from identifying with authorities who represent vicious acts as virtuous: the right thing to do. The volunteers might have interpreted the giving of shocks as necessary to the advancement of psychological research.
“Decent people participate in horrific acts not because they become passive, mindless functionaries who do not know what they are doing, but rather because they come to believe – typically under the influence of those in authority – that what they are doing is right.”
What’s the moral of the story?
There are obvious parallels with current horrific world events. On a different scale, there are injustices in our everyday work lives. How many of us deny what our instincts are telling us and instead comply with instructions that make us feel uncomfortable? What about risky trades, price-fixing, abusive work cultures, phone-hacking, discriminatory recruitment processes, bullying bosses or rip-off customer service? People fall in line with these because ‘that’s the way we do things round here.’ Deep down we all just want to fit in.
We do it at home too. Do you deny what you want to do, how you want to live, even how you eat, drink and party, because you acquiesce with what others want you to do? As psychologist Dr Ramani Durvasula writes: most of us are blindly obedient to the wishes of others.
What would change if you took yourself seriously?
I’m not advocating anarchy or defiance. Only that we wake up to what our instincts tell us. We need to take ourselves more seriously. That means taking responsibility for saying and doing the right thing. The right thing is the kindest thing, to others and ourselves. It means calling out injustice. Let’s thank our lucky stars that we have the freedom to do so.
Stay safe everyone
Warmest wishes
Zena
Zena Everett: Leadership Coach, Speaker, Author
M: +44 7968 424650
www.zenaeverett.com
zena@zenaeverett.com
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Sources:
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378.
Haslam SA, Reicher SD (2012) Contesting the “Nature” Of Conformity: What Milgram and Zimbardo’s Studies Really Show. PLoS Biol 10(11): e1001426. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001426
Dr Ramani Durvasula, (2013), You are why you eat, Skirt Books