Studying Obedience: Milgram and Beyond

On Tuesday Professor Pecenco spoke to the class about the Milgram experiments as an example of sociological research.  As the class seemed intrigued by the experiments I thought it might be helpful to sum up the research and list some links for further reading on the subject.

Milgram Obedience Studies

The Milgram Experiment
Image courtesy Wapcaplet, 
accessed here


Yale University Psychiatrist Stanley Milgram initially structured his experiments with the intention of proving that the majority of American’s would not cave to pressure and cause harm to another human being in ordered to do so.  His original predictions were that only 1% of participants would administer a potentially lethal shock.

The Milgram Obedience study could perhaps be better termed obedience studies, as there were multiple versions of the study.  The most commonly reported of these studies was conducted in 1961, and included 40 participants, all men.  In this first experiment 26 of the 40 men were willing to administer a potentially lethal shock. 

There were 19 variations to the experiment (conducted by Milgram and other psychologists) included location of the population being tested (inner city v. Yale University), location and dress of the “experimenter” (lab coat, non-lab coat, in the room, out of the room issuing orders over an intercom), the presence of other “teachers” (who were accomplices in the experiment), the gender of the participants and proximity of the teacher to the learner.  Proximity of the teacher to the learner was the only variation that produced significantly different levels of obedience.  The closer the learner was to the teacher the less likely the teacher was to administer high level shocks[1][1]. 

The Milgram experiments were and are quite controversial.  Not only are there ethical difficulties with the Milgram experiments, the interpretation and validity of the experiments are questioned.  The Milgram experiments were conducted prior to the advent of Institutional Review Boards that oversee experimental ethics.  The repercussions for participants of both the Milgram Experiments and the Stanford Prison Study were significant and grave.  These participants suffered psychological harm that at times stayed with them decades later.  Milgram did not always appropriately debrief his participants[2][2] and some did not know that the shocks were not real for months or even years after participating in the experiment.


Links for Further Reading on Milgram:

The Man Who Shocked The World, NPR Interview

Interview with Gina Perry, Author of “Behind the Shock Machine”

A partial transcript of a participant that refused to administer shocks beyond 150v

Wikipedia entry on Milgram Obedience Studies

Stanford Prison Study

The Stanford Prison study was conducted in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo.  The experiment was conducted upon 24 male Stanford University students.  These students volunteered for the prison study.  They were randomly assigned to the role of either guard or prisoner.  The assignment was randomly chosen by coin toss – the participants witnessed the random assignment (and thus were aware that their assignment as guard or prisoner was the result of pure random chance).   A mock prison was set up in the basement of the Stanford Psychology building and participants were slated to stay in the “prison” living their roles for 7-14 days.  The experiment was ended after 6 days due to the level of authoritarianism and abuse that the guards fell into in the study.

The experiment is remarkable for the way it displays the power of roles in shaping the actions and attitudes of individuals.  The experiment is another example of the power of authority – those participants slated as prisoners fell into the prisoner role and obeyed the authority of the experimenters and “guards.”   Lastly, the experiment is also another example of everyday people committed acts of violence. 

The Stanford Prison study has also been analyzed for the ethical difficulties it presents.  The participants in the study suffered severe psychological consequences. The validity of the study has also been challenged (though the power of roles has largely been upheld in the psychological and sociological literature).  A 2007 article by Carnahan T & McFarland S.  indicated that the personalities of individuals who respond to an advertisement for a “prison study” might be significantly different from individuals who respond to general calls for psychological studies[3][1].

Further Studies

The Asch Conformity Experiment (lines on chalkboard) 1951

http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/p/conformity.htm

http://psyc604.stasson.org/Asch1956.pdf

Sherif, 1936
http://www.intropsych.com/ch15_social/sherif_1936_group_norms_and_conformity.html

Bickman (1974)

Banality of Evil

Studies on Obedience are often used and interpreted to talk about what Hannah Arendt called "The Banality of Evil" - the idea that evil is a possibility within all of us.  Another interpretation of these studies, and the historical events they are often used to interpret, is that authority aids in the transference of responsibility. 
Some further resources on the idea of “evil”

Real Life Examples:

AbuGrabe prisoner abuse

McDonalds manager who undressed employee

"Group think"



Discussion Questions:

Many of these studies are Social Psychology based studies.  This means they are interested in investigating obedience, conformity and role taking from an individual point of view.  How might we consider these studies using the sociological imagination?

What cultural structures exist that might contribute to the way that people behaved in these studies and examples?

What sorts of Social Structures make use of authority?  Does obedience to authority have potential positive effects in society?

 These studies support the idea that many people will submit to authority even if what they are asked to do is unethical.  Should the manager in the Fast Food restaurant example be free from prosecution because they thought they were following police instructions?

The question of ethics and authority can be particularly tricky when we consider the actions of members of the military.  For soldiers in combat situations the willingness to follow orders without question can be the difference between life and death - for themselves and for their fellow soldiers.  However, the public has objected when certain actions by soldiers come to light.  One example listed above is the issue in Abu Grabe prison, but there were similar concerns regarding soldiers in the Vietnam War.  Do soldiers who were "just following orders" have a valid excuse for immoral behavior?

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[1][1] Milgram, 1974

[2][2] Perry, Gina

[3][1] Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2007 May;33(5):603-14. Epub 2007 Apr 17., accessed at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17440210