Obedience to Authority: Milgram's 1961 Study Examined - Essay Sample

Introduction

In 1961, Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted a study to investigate the willingness of participants to perform acts that go against their conscience when instructed to do so by an authority figure (Haslam and Reicher, 2017: 60). The experiment involved three parties: the experimenter, the teacher, and the learner. The experimenter asked the teacher (the subject) to administer electric shocks to the student for any wrong answer in a word-recall task. Out of the 40 participants, seven (17.5%) of them stop at 150V or below, while 26 (67%) continued to the final level, 450V, at which the learner could not respond (Haslam and Reicher, 2017: 60). Those who could not through with the test to the end did not request the termination of the experiment, and neither did they go to check on the learner (Zimbardo, n.d.).

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According to Milgram (1963: 361), the most devious crimes in history, genocides, for instance, were committed more as a result of following orders than in rebellion. The results of his experiment revealed that well-adjusted, ordinary people could be willing to harm others without a logical reason if instructed to do so by an authority figure. Relatively few people are capable of disobeying and acting as per their conscience. Consequently, he suggested that the German officers who were involved in mass killings during the Holocaust were acting in obedience to their superiors. The German soldiers were raised in the utmost code of compliance; therefore, they assisted in some of the most wicked actions in history (Milgram, 1963: 361). Milgram's obedience study findings can be elaborated using two theories. The first is conformism, which suggested that an individual with no ability to make decisions will leave the task to a group of reference and its hierarchy (Burger, 2018: 241). Consequently, they conform to the instructions given by those above them without thinking (Haslem and Reicher, 2012). This insinuates that such a subject will follow the decisions made by an individual of a higher rank. The other is the agentic state theory, which holds that the essence of obedience consists of viewing oneself as an instrument of doing what other person wants, and therefore not seeing oneself as responsible for the acts committed by following commands (Nissani, 1990: 1384; Barajas, 2016). Thus, the commander is responsible for the actions of the doer. The criminal often believes that he is innocent because he was only following orders (Solis, 1999: 482). While the assumption does not merit serious consideration in the legal context, it shows how subordinates working under commands are likely to pass the responsibility of their actions to their superiors.

Applicability to the Holocaust and Other Genocides

Over the past decades, the application of Milgram's obedience to authority theory in genocide studies has sparked mixed reactions. As stated before, Milgram hoped to use the study findings to justify compliance as the primary reason for the German officers (Nazis) involvement in mass killings, such as the Holocaust. While Milgram's results were promising, the application of his experiments in analyzing Nazi behavior was criticized by various psychologists and researchers for different reasons. For example, the participants were notified that their actions were not resulting in physical injuries, whereas the Nazis were knowingly killing their victims. Also, the subjects did not know the learners; hence they were not motivated by biases such as hatred and racism, unlike the perpetrators of the Holocaust. While the Holocaust lasted for years, the experiment took only an hour; hence, unlike the Nazis, the participants did not have enough time for the moral assessment of their behavior (Waller, 2007: 111). While the critics make valid points, Milgram's experiment proves that virtually all people are potential human rights violators under given conditions.

Although genocide studies largely attribute violence to racism, bigotry, political differences, and scarcity of resources, influence from an authority figure plays a significant role. The subjects who shocked the students did so under a sense of obligation, not from any aggressive behavior. Therefore, ordinary people following orders without any hospitality in their part can become agents of destructive processes (Milgram, 1974: 123). Following the same reasoning, German citizens and allies could be made to perpetrate unimaginable acts of violence against Jews in Europe (Blass, 1998: 50). The distance between the learner and the student in different rooms must have clouded the subjects' rationality, making it easier for them to administer electric shocks without thinking of the moral implications of their actions (Russell and Gregory, 2005: 327). This is equivalent to the mass killings by gassing in Nazi camps during the Holocaust. The Nazis sent Jewish prisoners into concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, and eliminated them in different chambers using Zyklon-B gas (Keren, McCarthy, and Mazal, 2004: 68). One of the primary reasons for choosing this method is it ensured that the perpetrators had minimal contact with their victims; hence, the soldiers would not have to deal with much guilt (Russell, 2019: 241). Consequently, the Nazi officials knew that although the soldiers were following commands to kill the prisoners, they were of the moral implications of their decisions.

Russel (2014: 195) and Haas (2008: 332) suggested that the Nazi perpetrators were driven by personal motives such as racism, careerism, greed, and ambition; obeying orders was a mere excuse. Although this statement might hold for some of the soldiers, it is arguably true that they were acting under the command of their superiors. The participants of Milgram's experiment stated that they did not feel responsible for their actions because they were following orders from an authority figure (Russell, 2014: 195). This must have been the case with the Nazi war criminals because they continually annihilated the Jewish Europeans despite the presence of natural human instincts against murder.

Just like the Holocaust, Milgram's obedience to authority can explain the Rwandan genocide. Although the rivalry between the Hutu and the Tutsi that had lasted for decades before the genocide was acknowledged as the primary cause of the violence, the role of leaders in perpetuating it cannot be overlooked. After the assassination of President Habyarimana of the Hutu Tribe, politicians, military officials, and businessmen organized gangs, who were dispatched throughout the country to kill the Tutsis (BBC News, 2011). The Hutu regime was compelled to believe that it could only stay in power by destroying the Tutsis (Magnarella, 2005: 812). The presidential guard and radio propaganda encouraged militia groups such as Interahamwe - which means those who fight together - to engage in the annihilation of the rival tribe (BBC News, 2011). Approximately ten percent of the violence, with about 51,000 perpetrators, resulted from influence from a local radio station (Yanagizawa-Drott, 2014: 1). Police officers and soldiers ordered civilians to participate; the few who were reluctant were forced to kill their Tutsi neighbors (BBC News, 2011). The Rwandan genocide, just like the Holocaust, shows that authority figures have an undeniable influence on those below them.

The rivalry between Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups must have started because someone convinced them that their physical differences make it impossible for them to live in the same land, and use the same resources. The animosity between the two must have grown when the colonial power in Rwanda considered the Tutsis superior to the Hutu, hence gave them better opportunities than their neighbors. While ordinary people with no aggressive tendencies are inclined to engage in violent activities at the command of an authority figure, resentment is a motivating factor. Consequently, police officers, soldiers, businessmen, politicians, radio stations, and military leaders easily made the Hutu citizens and gangs, who readily obeyed them, to perpetrate the genocide. Young boys who were recruited in the groups are proof that the majority of the participants were merely following orders. Arguably, the boys had no prior experience in the world of crime. However, due to the obstinate prejudice in the environment they grow in, it becomes easy for them to obey militant leaders, and to kill people when commanded to do so.

Milgram's obedience to authority is relevant to genocide studies because behind every war, or act of violence, there is a leader. The Holocaust was perpetrated by Adolf Hitler; the Rwandan genocide was influenced by various authority figures within the local and national administration. After the genocide, President Pasteur Bizimungu was arrested for inciting the violence (BBC News, 2011). Up to date, various scholars argue whether or not the mass killing in Rwanda and Nazi concentration camps would not occur if the participants were not following the orders of a person with a higher rank in the social or political hierarchy. In his study, Fenigstein (1998, 55) suggested that while obedience pressure was a factor during the Holocaust, it played a minor role. Most of the perpetrators had the choice to withdraw themselves from the operation, but they did not. Moreover, the majority of the Nazi officers showed no moral distress or remorse over the death of their prisoners (Fenigstein, 1998: 55). According to Kamatalli (2014), those who participated in the Rwandan genocide followed the instinct to obey, rather than to choose. Therefore, they followed commands from authoritative individuals without employing their true conscientiousness. However, other studies rejected blind obedience as the sole reason the criminals participated in the genocides. Mandel (1998: 80) stated that compliance does not depend on one module, hierarchy, for example; therefore, the actions of subordinates might be influenced by other factors. Milgram ignored such elements and only focused on a mono-causal account. Nevertheless, the points made by the critics and endorsers show although Milgram's experiments do not entirely explain the reason behind involvement in genocides, obedience plays a notable role.

Evaluating Milgram's Obedience to Authority in Genocide Studies

The first time a Milgram-like approach was applied in a genocide case was in the 1960s, with Adolf Eichmann - one of the holocaust perpetrators - as the defendant and Hannah Arendt, the plaintiff (Butler, 2011; Barajas, 2016; Fenigstein, 2015: 557). In his defense, Eichmann wrote that he was a low-level officer who worked under the command of his superiors. However, Arendt did not want the court to see him as a mere scapegoat of Nazism; hence, he was judged as a pathological individual (Butler, 2011). The prosecution only found Eichmann guilty of not thinking of the consequences of his involvement in the genocide (Butler, 2011). Later, Milgram would conduct his obedience experiment, which would prove that Eichmann's defense was valid. Although Milgram's findings showed that ordinary human beings are likely to violate the rights of others or commit other evils in obedience to an authority figure, modern genocide scholars have a problem with the lack of reasoning before taking action. After the judge asked the Nazi war criminal if he would kill his parents after receiving an order from a superior officer, he replied, saying that he would not do it (Russell, 2014: 195). This shows that besides the human tendency to obey authority figures, there are other factors that motivate individuals to participate in evil activities.

Arguments related to Milgram's experime...