Milgram at 50: Is It Time for a Rethink?

We all know that humans are capable of committing unspeakable evil. Perhaps the pinnacle of this human capability is the ability to commit genocides. After any particular group of people shows itself to be capable of enacting such extreme evil, we can come up with a slew of explanations that show why they could do such a thing, and by implication, why we could not. Maybe the people involved were mentally ill. Maybe they were brainwashed into believing that their victims were somehow subhuman. In the 1960’s some psychologists were grappling with how the holocaust could have happened and came up with a much more disturbing explanation. Perhaps, they wondered, the human instinct of obedience to authority was so strong that anybody would commit acts that they knew to be deplorable with a simple authoritarian order to do so. The idea seemed crazy, and many psychologists said so, but it was compellingly supported by a series of famous experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram. Those experiments, in which ordinary people were convinced to administer seemingly severe electric shocks to their fellow humans—created an uproar when they were first published 50 years ago. Then, and for decades afterwards, they were seen to imply that people do the bidding of those in authority regardless of the consequences of their actions.

But what if we’ve been too quick to accept Milgram’s version of the events? What if it wasn’t the men in white lab coats that Milgram’s hapless subjects were obeying? New research in a special edition of the Journal of Social Issues by psychologists S. Alexander Haslam, Stephen D. Reicher and Megan E. Birney find that it isn’t obedience that induces people to engage in questionable behavior, but rather a desire to participate in a worthwhile project. To read the original research article, click here. To watch a video describing this research click here.

Milgram’s experiments can never be replicated—no ethics panel today would ever allow it—so Haslam, Reicher and Birney developed an ingenious substitute. They gave participants a choice of five negative words to describe people whose onscreen image they were presented with. At first the images were of offensive groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, but they became successively more pleasant. As participants began to push back against choosing a negative epithet for nice people, they were given updated versions of Milgram’s original prods: a series of phrases used to induce participants to continue if ever they seemed reluctant.

“The results showed that the most successful prod wasn’t a command, but rather an appeal to engage in and advance a scientific experiment,” says co-author Haslam. “The lesson is that people are not programmed to follow authority; they make active choices and are accountable for their decisions.”

Elsewhere in the Journal, researchers used newly discovered archival findings and experimental methods to identify theoretical and empirical problems with Milgram's account. They find that, rather conforming naturally, people can and do disobey orders and that authorities need to work hard to secure consent. Stephen Reicher, one of the co-editors of the special edition commented, “Milgram showed us that ordinary people can do extraordinary harm to their fellows. Now, 50 years later, this volume showcases new understandings of how this happens, of when people choose to obey toxic authority and of how they can resist.” To read the table of contents of the entire journal issue, click here.