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Obedience to Authority summary

Name: Obedience to Authority
Rating: 4.6 (41 reviews)
Author: Stanley Milgram

Stanley Milgram

The Experiment That Challenged Human Nature

4.6 (41 ratings)

18 mins

Brief summary

'Obedience to Authority' by Stanley Milgram explores the results of his famous experiment which demonstrated humans' tendency to obey authority, even if it leads to harm. The book delves into the implications of this phenomenon.

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Neuroscience

Table of Contents

Obedience to Authority
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Find out how anyone can become an obedient inflictor of pain.

When we hear words like “obey,” “order” and “command,” it’s easy to think of a totalitarian dictatorship or a religious sect. But obedience is also an integral part of society’s hierarchical structure. We obey laws, or managers at work, or parents and so on. In fact, without obedience society might not function very well at all. So what’s the problem with obeying?

Well, there is a darker side to obedience. Throughout history, it has enabled genocides and war crimes by making ordinary people into murderers and torturers. So what are the mechanisms that make us do these things?

In these blinks, we’ll accompany Stanley Milgram on his path to understanding how susceptible we all are to becoming obedient to authority. We will explore in depth what is now the classic Milgram Experiment and find out how the better angels of our nature are easily dissuaded.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

why being physically close to someone makes us more resistant to authority;
what the agentic state is and how it’s integral for obedience; and
how a lab coat can make all the difference when it comes to following orders.

Obeying authority has led to some of the most heinous crimes in human history.

Think back to your younger years. When teachers told you to be quiet, or your parents told you to take out the trash, did you do it? If so, you obeyed. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. Obedience to authority, however, is not always harmless.

Indeed, obedience is at the heart of many atrocities, including every massacre and genocide.

The genocide of millions of Jews during the Holocaust, for example, was carried out by people who were following orders and obeying the regime.

While some brave souls tried to fight against these mass murders, most Germans didn’t resist Hitler’s government, which massacred so many people in concentration camps that the corpses formed piles as high as small hills.

Then there was the Vietnam War, during which the United States incinerated innocent civilians with napalm bombs while soldiers raped and murdered women and children. When these soldiers returned, however, they claimed to be innocent.

But how could they claim that after committing such terrible deeds? They were “just following orders.”

The uncritical obedience to a higher authority is evident in most disasters in human history. Whether it’s the Nazi soldiers or an average person next door, if a person perceives someone else as an authority, they will follow their orders and commit almost any atrocity, while still denying responsibility for their deeds.

And yet, most people would say that they’d never harm another human being. After examining some historical atrocities, most of us would claim that we’d never act on the command to kill or harm someone.

We erroneously place trust in our “superior” morals and ethical standards, along with the trust in our own humanity, to save us from turning into the cruel beasts that will do whatever they’re told.

Without some sort of scientific reference point, it’s hard to say how cruel we might become under the pressures of authority. This is where the author and his experiments on obedience enter the stage.

Stanley Milgram sought reasons for human obedience in a series of experiments.

Shocked by the genocide and horrors of the Nazi regime, the author, in an attempt to discover how people could do such things, conducted a series of experiments.

His initial experiment was simple, yet effective. While it might seem difficult to construct an experiment that successfully simulates the pressures under which people obediently hurt other human beings, the author nonetheless found a way.

The results of the experiment were shocking: people obeyed.

One would expect that, distressed by the learner’s agonized screams, the teachers would have refused to continue shocking the learner, despite the experimenter’s commands. What actually happened, however, is a much more troubling story.

The incidence of obedience was much higher than that of disobedience. The author and other psychiatrists expected obedience only up to a certain shock level, and were astonished to discover just how many teachers obeyed until the learner went silent, as if dead.

People who obey orders don’t feel responsible for their actions.

Observing the subjects in his experiment, the author noticed that they entered a state of mind which he termed the agentic state; in this state, subjects shifted responsibility for their actions onto some external entity – in this case, the experimenter.

A certain pattern of behavior accompanied this shift.

When commanded by non-authority figure, many of Milgram’s subjects were appalled by the cruelty of the experiments.

Intrigued by his findings, the author wanted to see whether people would blindly follow any command, or if obedience was directly related to perceived authority status. So, he modified his experiment to find out.

In the new variation, commands no longer came from the experimenter, but from a person without credible authority.

Some subjects tried to lessen the shocks and help the learner, yet didn’t dare to openly disobey the authority.

In the experiment, the question of whether aggression was at the root of obedience was quite natural. Did subjects obey because they harbored some innate sadistic tendencies that they could now act on with impunity? The answer was a clear no. In fact, the opposite appeared to be the case.

If the subjects saw an opportunity, they tried to disobey the commands of the experimenter. Indeed, if the experimenter seemed not to be watching, many subjects avoided increasing the voltage.

The further removed the subjects were from the process of shocking, the more obedient they became.

The degree of authority that subjects ascribed to the experimenters was an important factor in their willingness to obey commands. Equally important was the directness of the subjects’ involvement in the process of shocking. So the author modified his experiment once again, this time to see how proximity would affect obedience.

In one variation of his experiment, the author told subjects that they had to administer shocks by bringing the learner’s hand into contact with a shock plate. Not only did the teachers have to shock the learner; they had to physically force his hand onto the shock plate.

Breaking free from authority is extremely hard to do – and yet that’s what makes heroes.

As you’ve learned, the majority of participants participated in cruel behavior at the behest of the experimenter. But what about the ones who flat out disobeyed? What caused them to resist?

Subjects were put under immense emotional and intellectual strain during the experiment – so much, in fact, that a few decided to break free.

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What is Obedience to Authority about?

Obedience to Authority (1974) explores some of the darker elements of the human mind. It addresses tough issues, like why we follow orders and how far we’ll go when commanded to do something. With the author’s own seminal experiments as a backdrop, you’ll learn how even the most upright people can turn into cruel monsters under certain conditions.

Obedience to Authority Review

Obedience to Authority (1974) is a thought-provoking exploration of the power dynamics between individuals and authority figures. Here's why this book is worth reading:

With meticulous research and compelling experiments, it sheds light on the dark side of human obedience, highlighting the potential dangers that blind obedience can pose.
Illustrating the impact of authority in a variety of settings, from everyday situations to the ultimate extreme of the Holocaust, it prompts readers to question their own capacity for obedience.
By delving into the psychological mechanisms at play and the ethical implications of obedience, this book challenges our understanding of human behavior and fosters critical thinking.

Who should read Obedience to Authority?

Anyone who wants to know why soldiers unquestioningly commit atrocities
Amateur or professional students of psychology
People willing to take a look into the dark corners of the human psyche

About the Author

Stanley Milgram remains one of the most important and influential scientists in social psychology. His famous “Milgram Experiment” at Yale University has made its way into psychology and popular science books around the world.

Categories with Obedience to Authority

Psychology

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