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.

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 Drawing on previously unpublished material from Milgram's personal archive at Yale, this thesis investigates how Milgram developed his research idea to the point where, by the time he ran his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>

Los marcos sociales del mal. Notas para el estudio de los perpetradores de genocidios

Nuestro trabajo se enmarca en una investigación en torno a los debates sociológicos acerca del genocidio, encontrándonos en esta etapa en el estudio sobre los perpetradores.Actor polémico en las investigaciones sobre la temática, las primeras aproximaciones, al calor de los Juicios de Nuremberg entre 1945 y 1946, tendieron a asociar y a exponer a los perpetradores a partir de explicaciones que los ubicaron bajo parámetros de anormalidad y de sadismo, atribuyéndoles al mismo tiempo características demoníacas. En la década de 1960 se produjo un giro sustancial a partir del desarrollo del juicio a Adolph Eichmann, responsable de la Solución final nazi, como también en el campo de la psicología experimental. De este modo, y a pesar de los debates y controversias que generaron en su momento, la obra pionera de Hannah Arendt (2005) así como los experimentos llevados adelante por Stanley Milgram (1969) permitieron un cambio sustancial en el análisis de los perpetradores, siendo uno de sus aportes fundamentales la comprensión del carácter “normal” de estos.Relegada en las décadas sucesivas, en los últimos años ha habido un creciente interés en el estudio de esta figura, en parte debido a la reiteración de casos de genocidios y otros tipos de violencia en masa, y se han hecho diversas investigaciones tanto en el campo de la psicología como en el de la sociología.En el desarrollo de nuestra investigación, hemos pensando la noción de marcos sociales del mal para comprender cómo la gente común puede convertirse en genocida. En esa dirección, este artículo tiene dos objetivos: por un lado, nos proponemos explorar y presentar algunas de las diversas perspectivas con las que se ha analizado esta figura; por el otro, al partir de la posibilidad de analizar al genocidio como una acción social, nos aventuramos a reparar en los posibles aportes que puede hacer la teoría de Alfred Schutz al análisis de esta cuestión. Si bien el sociólogo de origen austríaco no reflexionó sobre la temática, creemos que sus escritos pueden aportar a la comprensión sociológica del genocidio.

Conclusion

The conclusion firstly draws out some broader theses from the preceding chapters. It then provisionally analyses the deployment of science fiction tropes within the body of official psychological literature, whether at a popular or more scholarly level. Although science fiction may be exploited in a very simple way within psychological theory and practice as a popularizing and didactic tool, there are other, more complex and often self-conscious ways that the genre is used. Psychologists as varied as Sandra and Daryl Bem, Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer, and Steven Pinker, invoke different speculative narratives of the future as a way to legitimate their particular psychological claims. Perhaps surprisingly, psychology can also make use of science fiction motifs to offer cognitive estrangement of the present, be this consciously, in critical feminist psychology, or unwittingly, as in the famed obedience experiments of Stanley Milgram.

Voices off: Stanley Milgram’s cyranoids in historical context

This article revisits a forgotten, late project by the social psychologist Stanley Milgram: the ‘cyranoid’ studies he conducted from 1977 to 1984. These investigations, inspired by the play Cyrano de Bergerac, explored how individuals often fail to notice when others do not speak their own thoughts, but instead relay messages from a hidden source. We situate these experiments amidst the intellectual, cultural, and political concerns of late Cold War America, and show how Milgram’s studies pulled together a variety of ideas, anxieties, and interests that were prevalent at that time and have returned in new guises since. In discussing the cyranoid project’s background and afterlife, we argue that its strikingly equivocal quality has lent itself to multiple reinterpretations by historians, psychologists, performers, artists, and others. Our purpose is neither to champion Milgram’s work nor to amplify the critiques already made of his methods. Rather, it is to consider the uncertain, allusive, and elusive aspects of the cyranoid project, and to seek to place that project in context, whilst asking where ‘context’ might end. We show how the experiments’ range of meanings, in different temporal registers, far exceeded the explanatory rubric that Milgram and his intellectual critics provided at that time, and ponder the risk for the historian of making anachronistic or teleological assumptions. In short, we argue, cyranoids invite our open-ended exploration of ‘voices offstage’ in social and psychological relations, and offer a useful tool for thinking about historical context and the nature of historical interpretations.

Análise dos limites da obediência hierárquica no direito penal à luz do experimento de Milgram

Por meio do presente artigo, elabora-se análise dos limites da obediência hierárquica no Direito Penal à luz do experimento de Stanley Milgram. Justifica-se a escolha do tema por entender-se que se trata de questão desconsiderada no mundo jurídico-penal brasileiro e, de certa forma, pouco explorada no meio acadêmico. O objetivo da pesquisa é mostrar, inicialmente, que o Código Penal brasileiroincorre na omissão sobre aspectos relevantes que justificam a isenção de pena do agente. Para demonstrar essa incongruência, é feita comparação entre a lei penal, a doutrina e a jurisprudência criminal com os resultados do experimento de Milgram, dando-se ênfase para os limites dentro dos quais é possível aceitar-se o reconhecimento de uma excludente de culpabilidade sob o pálio da obediência hierárquica. O problema constatado na abordagem é a previsão sobre a obediência hierárquica no Direito Penal comum e no militar, exsurgindo daí a necessidade de questionar-se o reconhecimento de uma excludente de culpabilidade sob o pálio da obediência hierárquica. A metodologia utilizada é a analítica, empírica, com conceitos jurídicos e normativos no âmbito do Direito e da Psicologia. Os conceitos utilizados levam em consideração a realidade social, bem como o entendimento doutrinário e jurisprudencial sobre a matéria. Espera-se obter como resultado do trabalho o esclarecimento da importância da correta aplicação do instituto da obediência hierárquica, considerando a mudança na lei penal.

Lost Letters: Using the Lost-letter Technique to Teach Social Research Methods

Over 50 years ago, Stanley Milgram and colleagues published a short article detailing an unobtrusive experimental design they called the lost-letter technique. The technique involves placing stamped, unmailed letters in a community and using the relative rate of return to infer local attitudes toward political issues and social groups. Furthermore, the technique is simple and inexpensive enough to replicate in an introductory-level social science course as a means to familiarize students with social research methodology. This activity utilizes active learning with student-centered pedagogy, and this paper details the procedure, best practices, and student feedback. Students enjoy having a personal stake in the project and find they better understand social research through this active learning project. Instructors are encouraged to consider adopting the technique in their courses.