Journal Scan: Obedience
Shannon Hill, Ph.D.

Editor's Note: The Journal Scan column is designed to share information from professional journals that might be useful to The Baddour Center's staff and families. The citation for this quarter's selection is as follows: Anderson, N.B. (Ed., 2009). Obedience - Then and Now. American Psychologist (Special Issue),64(1).

"Human nature cannot be counted on to insulate man from brutality and inhumane treatment at the direction of malevolent authority. A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority."

This quote comes from Stanley Milgram, in his narration of a film compilation of his research subjects responding to instructions to administer electric shock to another person. The study took place in the 1960s and 1970s and was borne of Milgram's desire to understand how the Holocaust could have occurred. To get his answer, he designed a study in which participants were told he was researching the effectiveness of punishment as a teaching tool. They were then given a list of items to "teach" to another study participant (who was actually an actor following a script). Each time the learner provided an incorrect response, the teacher was to administer a graduated electric shock. The shocks began very mildly, but increased all the way up to 450 volts (or so the participant thought; there was no actual shock being administered).

Milgram found that 50% of the participants would continue to administer the shocks to the maximum voltage. They would do so even when the learner screamed in pain, complained of a heart condition, and demanded to be released. Most troubling of all, they would continue to do so even when the learner stopped responding at all. Many were deeply conflicted about it, but continued nonetheless when their authority figure, a stranger in lab coat, calmly stated that they must.

Do you think Milgram's study would have yielded the same results in today's more individualistic society? Psychologists have pondered that question for years, but, ironically, felt barred from repeating the study. Milgram's study was conducted before the adoption of many of today's research regulations. Today, research review committees would likely say that the psychological risks to the participants were too high. Thanks to the internet, you can now see actual footage from Milgram's experiments on You Tube (just use the search terms "Milgram Obedience Experiment." The participants are obviously distressed. That distress, however, visibly dissipates as soon as they are told they never really shocked anyone. However, we know less about secondary distress. How did people feel about themselves later, knowing that they were capable of doing such a thing?

In order to study obedience differences in today's world, Jerry Burger, a researcher from Santa Clara University, proposed to replicate Milgram's study on a reduced scale. That is, subjects were asked to administer shocks until the learner first demanded to be let go. Their responses to the experimenter's instruction to ignore that and continue were noted (whether they would continue or refuse) and the experiment was ended.

Burger found that, despite the cultural changes that celebrate individualistic thinking today, people essentially responded the same way they did 40 years ago. In Milgram's original study, 83% continued to administer shocks after the first serious complaint and demand to be let go. Among Burger's participants, 70% continued. Although this is a drop, it is not a statistically significant drop. Hopefully, it is indicative of a trend toward ethical analysis.

So, what does this mean for us? I think it means we have to be conscious of the fact that people (whether they have intellectual disabilities or not) will likely comply with the most salient authority figure in their lives. Part of Milgram's original experiment tested the effect of proximity; it did matter if the person was closer to the experimenter or the learner. It did matter whether they had to actually physically touch the learner to administer the shock or not. It did also matter if they saw other people refuse, although it seemed important to see more than one other person refuse. A single peer refusal apparently does not outweigh the strength of a single authority figure's instruction. So, the people who spend the most time with our residents must be singly concerned with their well-being. They must be doubly conscious of their own influence, and continuously check themselves to be sure they are administering their authority fairly and respectfully. From a teaching perspective, those who spend the most time with our residents should also remember that they are even more vulnerable than the rest of us to submissiveness. They need instruction on ways to cope with directives that make them uncomfortable.

Finally, as an organization I think it is important to take the proximity factor into consideration. People comply with authorities that are close by. This doesn't mean that managers, directors, or supervisors should micromanage their people, but it does mean that they will be most effective when they are most visible. Perhaps more importantly, when authority figures are distant, substitute authority figures tend to emerge. There are other studies that support the idea that people love a hierarchy and they will invent one if none exists. So, supervisors must always be aware that if they are not in close contact with their people, someone else probably is. That proxy figure may or may not be delivering the same message.