A novel experimental approach to study disobedience to authority

Fifty years after the experiments of Stanley Milgram, the main objective of the present paper is to offer a paradigm that complies with up-to-date ethical standards and that can be adapted to various scientific disciplines, ranging from sociology and (social) psychology to neuroscience. Inspired by subsequent versions of Milgram-like paradigms and by combining the strengths of each, this paper presents a novel experimental approach to the study of (dis)obedience to authority. Volunteers are recruited in pairs and take turns to be ‘agents’ or ‘victims’, making the procedure fully reciprocal. For each trial, the agents receive an order from the experimenter to send a real, mildly painful electric shock to the ‘victim’, thus placing participants in an ecological set-up and avoiding the use of cover stories. Depending on the experimental condition, ‘agents’ receive, or do not receive, a monetary gain and are given, or are not given, an aim to obey the experimenter’s orders. Disobedience here refers to the number of times ‘agents’ refused to deliver the real shock to the ‘victim’. As the paradigm is designed to fit with brain imaging methods, I hope to bring new insights and perspectives in this area of research.

Compassionate Reasoning, the Mind, and Moral Choice

The ethical schools of thought are essential to decision-making for peacebuilding and positive social change. The directives emerging from ethical schools often contradict each other, but Compassionate Reasoning can help resolve these contradictions and guide people in a more coherent direction of thinking and acting. The cultivation of compassion is shown to be a glue that bonds schools of ethics into one enterprise of moral reasoning as seen through several lenses. People who reason together are more adept at problem solving than when reasoning alone, but only if they have cultivated caring and compassionate relationships as a group. Moral reasoning in fierce competition with others, by contrast, retards the discovery of solutions to thorny problems. Compassionate Reasoning encourages collective reasoning rather than isolated and selfish reasoning. Excessive obedience to authority is also one of the most dangerous aspects of the human lower brain. A critical antidote is extensive training in taking the perspectives of others through Compassionate Reasoning.

Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiments: Towards an Understanding of Their Relevance in Explaining Aspects of the Nazi Holocaust

<p>Two leading Holocaust historians, Yehuda Bauer and Christopher Browning, have in recent years independently asked how so many ordinary Germans (most of whom in the 1930s had been moderately anti-Semitic) could become by the early 1940s willing murderers of Jews. Social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, had years before been interested in finding answers to similar questions, and to that end in the early 1960s carried out his widely debated "Obedience to Authority" (OTA) experiments at Yale University. Drawing on previously unpublished material from Milgram's personal archive at Yale, this thesis investigates how Milgram developed his research idea to the point where, by the time he ran his first official experiment, he was able to convert the majority of his ordinary subjects into torturers of other people. It is argued that Milgram's experiments were in themselves structured as a bureaucratic microcosm, and say less about obedience to authority, per se, than about the ways in which people in an organisational context resolve a pressing moral dilemma. The thesis uses insights gained from Milgram's experimental innovations to assist in answering the question posed by Bauer and by Browning, focusing on the Nazis' progressive development of mass killing methods, from 1941 to 1944, during Operation Barbarossa and Operation Reinhard. It is shown how these methods were designed to diminish perpetrators' perceptual stimulation, in order to make the "undoable" increasingly "doable", in ways that were later reflected in Milgram's development of his own experimental methodology.</p>

Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiments: Towards an Understanding of Their Relevance in Explaining Aspects of the Nazi Holocaust

<p>Two leading Holocaust historians, Yehuda Bauer and Christopher Browning, have in recent years independently asked how so many ordinary Germans (most of whom in the 1930s had been moderately anti-Semitic) could become by the early 1940s willing murderers of Jews. Social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, had years before been interested in finding answers to similar questions, and to that end in the early 1960s carried out his widely debated "Obedience to Authority" (OTA) experiments at Yale University. Drawing on previously unpublished material from Milgram's personal archive at Yale, this thesis investigates how Milgram developed his research idea to the point where, by the time he ran his first official experiment, he was able to convert the majority of his ordinary subjects into torturers of other people. It is argued that Milgram's experiments were in themselves structured as a bureaucratic microcosm, and say less about obedience to authority, per se, than about the ways in which people in an organisational context resolve a pressing moral dilemma. The thesis uses insights gained from Milgram's experimental innovations to assist in answering the question posed by Bauer and by Browning, focusing on the Nazis' progressive development of mass killing methods, from 1941 to 1944, during Operation Barbarossa and Operation Reinhard. It is shown how these methods were designed to diminish perpetrators' perceptual stimulation, in order to make the "undoable" increasingly "doable", in ways that were later reflected in Milgram's development of his own experimental methodology.</p>

Psychopathic traits mediate guilt-related anterior midcingulate activity under authority pressure

Coercive power has different effects on individuals, and which were unable to be fully addressed in Milgram’s famous studies on obedience to authority. While some individuals exhibited high levels of guilt-related anxiety and refused orders to harm, others followed coercive orders throughout the whole event. The lack of guilt is a well-known characteristic of psychopathy, and recent evidence portrays psychopathic personalities on a continuum of clustered traits, while being pervasive in a significant proportion in the population. To investigate whether psychopathic traits better explain discrepancies in antisocial behavior under coercion, we applied a virtual obedience paradigm, in which an experimenter ordered subjects to press a handheld button to initiate successive actions that carry different moral consequences, during fMRI scanning. Psychopathic traits modulated the association between harming actions and guilt feelings on both behavioral and brain levels. This study sheds light on the individual variability in response to coercive power.

Obedience to authority, cognitive and affective responses and leadership style in relation to a non-normative order: the Milgram experiment

The influence of the context on behavioral and emotional reactions to a war crime situation military cadets (N = 315) is analyzed. The study is based on Milgram’s experience and the tragedy of My Lai.It examines personal and peer obedience to an anti-normative order (asking participants whether they would obey an order to shoot unarmed civilians) in five vignettes or scenarios that reproduce Milgram’s conditions and MyLai scenario. This is an experimental between-within study of five scenarios by two conditions (Milgram, 1974). Personal and collective obedience of other military, emotional reactions and values of Schwartz (2012) were measured. Showing enhancement of self-bias it is reported that the pairs would be more likely to shoot than one would. Replicating Milgrams’s results, obedience is greater when the order is given directly by an authority, and lower when there is conflict between authorities and peers rebel. Confirming that identification with humanity and not just with the in-group may prompt respondents to reject an anti-normative order, values of transcendence of the self are associated with less obedience and congruent emotional reactions. Self-perceived transformational leadership was associated with positive emotions towards peer that disobey to fire. However a transformational style perceived in the superior was associated to positive emotions by respect to soldier who open fire, adding information on the potential dark side of this leadership style. The relevance of personal values, leadership style and affectivity in military context is discussed.

Obedience to authority in the aftermath of a genocide. A social neuroscience study in Rwanda

We investigated to what extent the first generation of Rwandese born after the 1994 genocide would comply with immoral orders to inflict pain to another individual. We recruited 72 Rwandese in Rwanda and 72 Rwandese in Belgium. We observed that the more they reported that their family suffered during the 1994 genocide, the less they complied with immoral orders. This effect appeared to be mediated by a higher neural response to the pain of others for participants who reported a greater family suffering. We also observed that Rwandese tested in Belgium disobeyed more frequently to immoral orders than Rwandese tested in Rwanda. Results indicated that the best predictive factor of prosocial disobedience was a low cultural relationship to authority, thus emphasizing the weight of culture and education on people’s behaviors. The present study opens new paths for interdisciplinary field research dedicated to the study of obedience.

Response to Violence

This chapter analyzes Józef Szerynski's awareness of the pathological situation that had prevailed in the Guard of the Labor Battalion, which formed the backbone of the Jewish Order Service. It highlights the first measures Szerynski undertook that were aimed at enforcing discipline among people who were not used to serving in a police organization. It also reviews the daily orders issued between November 1940 and January 1941 that reveal the disciplinary problems Szerynski had to face during this period. The chapter emphasizes how policemen had to be reminded of the need to maintain a proper appearance and to salute all senior officials, signaling obedience to authority. It discusses members of the Jewish Order Service that are still subject to the German judicial authorities in terms of criminal accountability.

Inner sound or forum theater to resolve communicational problems

Background: Internship is the most important process that prepares a person for his profession. However, this process can also bring some problems in the context of human relations. Inner sound and forum are techniques that have been using in psycho-educational group works. Purpose: To manifest what man want to accomplish and how he perceives the recognition of the problematic situations. The general purpose of the study is whether the students of the Faculty of Education who attend the internship solve the difficult situations they encounter within themselves or try to resolve it through a group discussion. Materials and Methods: This study is conducted in Sinop University Education Faculty’ Elementary School education students. In this study, all data analysis is conducted using interviewing – a qualitative information gathering technique. A study group consisting of 50 university students from different age groups was formed. Two general divisions of personal and group is gathered into categories of obedience to authority and obeying the rules. The qualitative interview conducted. Results: The two general distinctions, personal and group, are divided into two categories: obedience to authority and obedience to rules. Among the qualitative data collection techniques performed, the interview can be grouped as “I cannot do it”, “they do not allow it”, “my friend did not want it”, “I was scared”. Conclusions: Playing to complain and to find solutions instead of muttering is done through interactive forum theater method. For this, it should be suggested that students who attend internship at faculties create a forum to share their experiences, conflicts and problems that they could not find solutions to.

“Because I said so!”: Mothers’ conventional conflict justifications related to resolution and child behavior problems and temperamental reactivity

A common strategy parents use to justify their point of view during parent–child conflict is conventional reasoning, which focuses on child obedience to authority. In this brief report, we examined mothers’ use of conventional justification during mother–child conflict discussions in relation to the resolution reached and children’s behavior problems and temperamental reactivity concurrently and longitudinally. Participants included 190 mothers and their 5- to 7-year-old children. Dyads engaged in a conflict discussion task in the laboratory, which was coded for mothers’ use of conventional justification and the type of resolution reached. Mothers reported on child behavior problems and temperamental reactivity then and 1 year later. Results showed mothers used more conventional reasoning during conflict discussions that resulted in a win/loss resolution compared to a compromise. Mothers’ conventional reasoning was concurrently associated with more child externalizing behaviors and temperamental reactivity at Year 1. Mothers’ conventional reasoning did not relate to changes in child behaviors over time. Findings are discussed in terms of mothers’ conceptions of parental authority and possible directions of effects.