COMPLIANCE TO AUTHORITY
Our instinct to obey authority can have dramatic consequences: A nurse may blindly follow a doctor's orders of giving a patient a lethal dosage of medicine even though she knows it may be wrong. The Nazis famous defence at the Nuremburg trials was "just following orders". Although fictional, Lance Corporal Dawson and Private Downey in A Few Good Men accidentally killed Private Santiago under the orders to give him a Code Red (It's a great film/play, I definitely recommend it).
Something is wrong here. Why do we comply to the request of someone of authority like rats (or children) comply to follow the Pied Piper?
Milgram's experiment
Milgram seeked to investigate this conflict between obedience and conscience, particularly to find justifications for the atrocities committed by the Nazis in WW2. Was it possible that Germans were particularly susceptible to comply to authority figures? Milgram (1963) wanted to see how far the average Joe would go in obeying an order that involved hurting another person.
You can watch the video below summarising his study.
The Procedure
At the beginning of the experiment participants were introduced to one another, had a nice chat, then drew straws for two roles; either the teacher or the learner. However, one of the participants wasn't actually a participant, he was in on it (known as a confederate). There was also an experimenter dressed in a grey lab coat who ran the experiment.
The learner (confederate) was taught a list of world pairs that would have to later be recalled. Following this, he was strapped into a sort of electric chair.
Now the really interesting stuff starts...
When testing started the teacher was instructed by the experimenter to give the learner (remember he is a confederate) an electric shock when a word-pair was incorrect. These shocks started at 15 volts and went to 450V.
As the shocks increased, the increased discomfort of the learner (obviously) increased, yet the teacher would still increase the voltage. After a while, many of them refused to give any more shocks to the learner because they knew they were hurting him, but upon the instruction or command of the experimenter in the grey lab coat, they would keep going.
65% of the teachers went to the highest voltage whilst all of them went to 300 volts, definitely enough to kill a man.
The results rocked the U.S. Even ordinary people will follow orders given by someone of authority, even to the extent that they would kill them.
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| The news shocked everyone. |
The Power of the Uniform
In Milgram's original study the experimenter wore a grey lab coat. Nothing too huge or extravagant right? Well that grey lab coat had a pretty huge effect. In an extension to the original the experimenter was 'called away' and an ordinary looking person in civilian clothing took his place. Without the lab coat, compliance dropped to 20%; an obvious sign that wearing the lab coat added power.
Bickman (1974) ran a series of experiments to find if different uniforms have different effects on obedience. He had participants approached by people in three costumes:
1) Milkman
2) Policeman
3) Civilian clothing
Passerbys were told to pick up a bag, give money to someone or move away from where they were standing. When told by the man in a seemingly convincing policeman uniform, the participants were twice as likely to follow an order than the other men in uniform. The compliance even continued after the policeman walked away.
Children also see power in a police uniform, and learn this at a pretty young age. When shown pictures of three different men, children were asked about who could make a lawful arrest. One man was a police officer out of uniform, the other was a police officer in uniform and the last was an imposter; a man who wasn't an officer of the law, yet was in uniform. Although told that he wasn't a policeman, the children still chose the non-policeman (Durkin)
An eye opening experiment also showed that a man wearing a costume could tell people to keep someone prisoner, get them to a jump on the spot or even worse than all of the aforementioned atrocities... litter.
So what can we do? Well we often look up to authority to help us. The person of authority is the one we trust. They may be wiser, and in the case of the police; they may truly come to our aid when we need them. So, still trust your neighbourhood Bobby, do what he says if it makes sense. However, if you aren't quite sure, make sure to ask for some identification.
References:
Bickman, L. (1974). The social power of a uniform1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 4(1), 47-61.
Durkin, K., & Jeffery, L. (2000). The salience of the uniform in young children's perception of police status. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 5(1), 47-55.
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. The Journal of abnormal and social psychology, 67(4), 371.
Bickman (1974) ran a series of experiments to find if different uniforms have different effects on obedience. He had participants approached by people in three costumes:
1) Milkman
2) Policeman
3) Civilian clothing
Passerbys were told to pick up a bag, give money to someone or move away from where they were standing. When told by the man in a seemingly convincing policeman uniform, the participants were twice as likely to follow an order than the other men in uniform. The compliance even continued after the policeman walked away.
Children also see power in a police uniform, and learn this at a pretty young age. When shown pictures of three different men, children were asked about who could make a lawful arrest. One man was a police officer out of uniform, the other was a police officer in uniform and the last was an imposter; a man who wasn't an officer of the law, yet was in uniform. Although told that he wasn't a policeman, the children still chose the non-policeman (Durkin)
An eye opening experiment also showed that a man wearing a costume could tell people to keep someone prisoner, get them to a jump on the spot or even worse than all of the aforementioned atrocities... litter.
So what can we do? Well we often look up to authority to help us. The person of authority is the one we trust. They may be wiser, and in the case of the police; they may truly come to our aid when we need them. So, still trust your neighbourhood Bobby, do what he says if it makes sense. However, if you aren't quite sure, make sure to ask for some identification.
References:
Bickman, L. (1974). The social power of a uniform1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 4(1), 47-61.
Durkin, K., & Jeffery, L. (2000). The salience of the uniform in young children's perception of police status. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 5(1), 47-55.
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. The Journal of abnormal and social psychology, 67(4), 371.
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