In actual fact, over 60 per cent of the subjects at Yale continued to obey the Prof to the very end -- the 450 volt limit. When the experiment was repeated in Italy, South Africa and Australia, the percentage of obedient subjects was somewhat higher. In Munich it was 85 per cent.
Before going any further, let me clarify a few points relating to the experimental set-up.
First, the Prof had no power over his volunteer subjects comparable to that of an army officer or an office boss or even a school teacher. He had no power to punish the subject who refused to administer further shocks, nor did he have any financial or other incentives to offer. (It was understood that volunteers would only be employed on a single occasion.)
How then did the Prof impose his authority on the 'teacher, and induce him to continue with his gruesome task? There was no bullying, nor any eloquent persuasion. The Prof's procedure was rigidly standardized:
At various points in the experiment the subject would turn to the
experimenter [the Prof] for advice on whether he should continue to
administer shocks. Or he would indicate that he did not wish to go on.
The experimenter responded with a sequence of 'prods', using as many
as necessary to bring the subject into line.
Prod 1: Please continue or Please go on.
Prod 2: The experiment requires that you continue.
Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue.
Prod 4: You have no other choice, you must go on.
The experimenter's tone of voice was at all times firm,
but not impolite.
If the subject asked if the learner was liable to suffer permanent
physical injury, the experimenter said: 'Although the shocks may
be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage, so please go
on.' (Followed by prods 2, 3 and 4, if necessary.)
If the subject said that the learner did not want to go on,
the experimenter replied: 'Whether the learner likes it or not,
you must go on until he has learned all the word pairs correctly. So
please go on.' (Followed by Prods 2, 3 and 4, if necessary.)3
One could hardly call this technique brain-washing. And yet it worked on nearly two-thirds of all experimental subjects, regardless of country and of the method of soliciting volunteers. It worked even when the 'victim' complained of a heart condition and the maximum shocks seemed to constitute a danger to his life. That humane people are capable of committing inhuman acts when acting as members of an army or a fanatical mob has always been taken for granted. The importance of the experiments was that they revealed how little was needed to push theni across the psychic boundary which separates the behaviour of decent citizens from dehumanized SS guards. The fragility of that boundary -- which two-thirds of the subjects crossed -- came as an utter surprise even to psychiatrists, whose recorded predictions turned out to be totally -- though understandably -- wrong.
A comfortable way to evade the uncomfortable problem with which these results confront us, is to put the blame on the repressed aggressive impulses of the subjects, for which the experiments provide a socially respectable outlet. This interpretation is in the traditional line of Freud's 'urge to destruction', or Lorenz's 'killer-instinct' -- a view which, as I have argued before, is contradicted by both the historical and psychological evidence. Milgram found an elegant method to refute this facile explanation, and to demonstrate that
... the act of shocking the victim does not stem from destructive
urges but from the fact that the subjects have become integrated
into a social structure and are unable to get out of it. Suppose the
experimenter instructed the subject to drink a glass of water. Does
this mean the subject is thirsty? Obviously not, for he is simply
doing what he is told to do. It is the essence of obedience that
the action carried out does not correspond to the motives of the
actor but is initiated in the motive system of those higher up in
the social hierarchy.'
To prove his point, he carried out a further series of experiments in which the 'teacher' was told that he was free to inflict on the learner any shock level of his own choice on any of the trials --
... the highest levels on the generator, the lowest, any in between,
or any combination of levels ... [5]
Though given full opportunity to inflict pain on the learner, almost all subjects administered the lowest shocks on the control panel, the mean shock level being 54 volts. [Remember that the victim's first mild complaint came only at 7S volts.] But if destructive impulses were really pressing for release, and the subjects could justify their use of high shock levels in the cause of science, why did they not make the 'learners' suffer? There was little if any tendency in the subjects to do this. One or two, at most [out of 40 subjects]*, seemed to derive any satisfaction from shocking the learner. The levels were in no way comparable to that obtained when the subjects were ordered to shock the victim. There was an order-of-magnitude difference.'
* The experimental series consisted of batches of 40 subjects of mixed
ages and professions.
In the original experiments, when the teacher acted on the Prof's orders, an average of 25 out of 40 subjects administered the maximum shock of 450 volts. In the free-choice experiment 38 out of 40 did not go beyond 150 volts (victim's first loud protest) and only two subjects went up to 325 and 450 respectively.
To clinch the argument, Milgram quotes other experiments, carried out by his colleagues Buss and Berkowitz in a similar set-up.
In typical experimental manipulations, they frustrated the subject
to see whether he would administer higher shocks when angry. But
the effect of these manipulations was minuscule compared with the
levels obtained under obedience. That is to say, no matter what
these experimenters did to anger, irritate or frustrate the subject,
he would at most move up one or two shock levels, say from shock
level 4 to level 6 [90 volts]. This represented a genuine increment
in aggression. But there remained an order-of-magnitude difference
in the variation introduced in his behaviour this way, and under
conditions where he was taking orders. [7]
The vast majority of the experimental subjects, far from deriving any pleasure from shocking the victim, showed various symptoms of emotional strain and distress. Some broke into a sweat, others pleaded with the Prof to stop, or protested that the experiment was cruel and stupid. Yet two-thirds nevertheless went on to the bitter end.
What made them persist in a task that was obviously distasteful to them and in blatant contradiction to their individual standards of ethics? Milgram's analysis, apart from some differences in terminology, is on the same lines as the theoretical considerations set out in previous chapters. He recognizes the profound implications of the hierarchic concept*: to wit,
that . . . when individuals enter a condition of hierarchic control,
the mechanism which ordinarily regulates individual impulses is
suppressed and ceded to the higher-level component . . . [8]
The individuals who enter into such hierarchies are, of necessity,
modified in their functioning . . . [9] This transformation
corresponds precisely to the central dilemma of our experiment:
how is it that a person who is usually decent and courteous acts
with severity against another person within the experiment? . . . [10]
The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching
consequence of submission to authority . . . [11]
Most subjects in the experiment see their behaviour in a larger context
that is benevolent and useful to society -- the pursuit of scientific
t
ruth. The psychological laboratory has a strong claim to legitimacy
and evokes trust and confidence in those who perform there. An action
such as shocking a victim, which in isolation appears evil, acquires
a totally different meaning when placed in this setting . . . [12]
Morality does not disappear, but acquires a radically different
focus: the subordinate person feels shame and pride depending
on how adequately he has performed the actions called for by
authority. Language provides numerous terms to pinpoint this type
of morality: loyalty, duty, discipline . . . [13]
* I was gratified by the generous references in his book to the
hierarchic mode proposed in The Ghost in the Machine.
Here, then, we have the experimental confirmation of what I have called the 'infernal dialectics' in man's condition. It is not, as the facile catch -- phase goes, his 'innate aggressiveness' (i.e., his self-assertive tendency) which transforms harmless citizens into torturers, but their self-transcending devotion to a cause, symbolized by the Prof in the role of the leader. It is the integrative tendency acting as a vehicle or catalyst which induces the change of morality, the abrogation of personal responsibility, the replacement of the individual's code of behaviour by the code of the 'higher component' in the hierarchy. In the course of this fatal process, the individual becomes to a certain extent de-personalized; he no longer functions as an autonomous holon or part-whole, but merely as a part. Janus no longer has two faces -- only one is left, looking upward in holy rapture or in a moronic daze.
The final conclusions which Milgram drew from his experiments are in keeping with the present theory:
This is, perhaps, the most fundamental lesson of our study:
ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular
hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive
process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work
become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions
incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively
few people have the internal resources needed to resist authority
. . . [14]
The behaviour revealed in the experiments reported here is normal
human behaviour but revealed under conditions that show with
particular clarity the danger to human survival inherent in our
make-up. And what is it we have seen? Not aggression, for there
is no anger, vindictiveness, or hatred in those who shocked the
victim. Something far more dangerous is revealed: the capacity for man
to abandon his humanity, indeed, the inevitability that he does so, as
he merges his unique personality into larger institutional structures.
This is a fatal flaw nature has designed into us, and which in the
long run gives our species only a modest chance of survival.
It is ironic that the virtues of loyalty, discipline, and self-sacrifice
that we value so highly in the individual are the very properties
that create destructive organizational engines of war and bind men
to malevolent systems of authority . . . [15]
4
I said earlier on that the metamorphosis of individual minds into the group-mind does not necessarily require the individual's physical presence in a group or crowd, only an act of identification with the group -- its beliefs, traditions, leadership, and/or its emotion-rousing symbols. Thus in the case of Milgram's experiments, the 'teachers' became members of an invisible group -- the awe-inspiring academic hierarchy, the priesthood of Science -- whose wisdom and authority were represented by the Prof. But once committed, they found themselves in a trap -- a 'closed system', easily entered, but difficult to get out of. The integrative tendency, which provides the binding forces within the group, manifests itself in various ways which we have discussed before, but they all carry a high emotive voltage, far beyond rational expectation: Milgram's results drastically refuted the predictions of psychiatrists -- and of commonsense.
Some more recent experiments by Henri Tajfel and his team at Bristol University produced equally unexpected phenomena in a different context. Parties of schoolboys aged 14 to 15 were subjected to a quick -- and bogus -- psychological test; then each boy was told that he was either a 'Julius person or an 'Augustus person'. No explanation was given of the characteristics of the Julius or Augustus people, nor did the boys know who the other members of their group were. Nevertheless, they promptly identified with their fictitious group, proud to be a Julius person or an Augustus person to such an extent that they were willing to make financial sacrifices to benefit their anonymous group brothers, and to cause discomfort in the other camp.
The procedure followed in this and later experiments was rather complicated; instead of going into more detail I shall quote the summary given by Nigel Calder, who has done much to bring Tajfel's findings to public attention:
The experiments that began with the Bristol schoolboys have given
points of reference in a broad ocean of human social behaviour
that previously seemed unnavigable for science. Many a theory had
been launched in vain. Some, like those of Sigmund Freud and Konrad
Lorenz, offered the innate aggressiveness of the individual as the
source of conflict between groups -- a world war being somehow like
a pub brawl that got out of hand . . . [16] Yet the big problem all
along has been to explain why well-behaved young men will so readily
go out and kill other well-behaved young men, not in a frenzied
horde but in disciplined formation. A forceful challenge to the
'individualistic' point of view has come from the social psychologist
Henri Tajfel. He points to the drastic shift in the norms of human
behaviour, when one group confronts another. What comes into play is
the capacity of people to act in unison, in accordance with the laws
and structure of society, largely irrespective of individual motives
and feelings . . . In a remarkable series of experiments Tajfel and
his colleagues at Bristol University have shown that you can alter
a person's behaviour predictably, just by telling him he belongs to
a group -- even a group of which he has never before heard. Almost
automatically the participant in these experiments favours anonymous
members of his own group and, given the opportunity, he is likely to
go out of his way to put members of another group at a disadvantage
. . . People will stick up for a group to wbich they happen to be
assigned, without any indoctrination about who else is in the group
or what its qualities are supposed to be . . . [17] Only by grasping
the full import of the positive and quick propensity of human beings
to identify with any group they find themselves in can one make a
firm base from which to search out the origins of hostility . . . [18]
I found these experiments extremely revealing, not only on theoretical grounds but also for personal reasons, related to a childhood episode which has never ceased to puzzle and amuse me. On my first day at school, aged five, in Budapest, Hungary, I was asked by my future class-mates the crucial question: 'Are you an MTK or an FTC?' These were the initials of Hungary's two leading soccer teams, perpetual rivals for the League championship, as every schoolboy knew -- except little me, who had never been taken to a football match. However, to confess such abysmal ignorance was unthinkable, so I replied with haughty assurance: 'MTK, of course!' And thus the die was cast; for the rest of my childhood in Hungary, and even when my family moved to Vienna, I remained an ardent and loyal supporter of MTK; and my heart still
goes out to them, all the way across the Iron Curtain. Moreover, their glamorous blue-and-white striped shirts never lost their magic, whereas the vulgar green-and-white stripes of their unworthy rivals still fill me with revulsion. I am even inclined to believe that this early conversion played a part in making blue my favourite colour. (After all, the sky is blue, a primary colour, whereas green is merely the product of its adulteration with yellow.) I may laugh at myself, but the emotive attachment, the magic bond, is still there, and to shift my loyalty from the blue-white MTK to the green-white FTC would be downright blasphemy. Truly, we pick up our allegiances like infectious germs. Even worse, we walk through life unaware of this pathological disposition, which lures mankind from one historic disaster into the next.
5
From the dawn of recorded history, human societies have always been fairly successful in restraining the self-assertive tendencies of the individual -- until the howling little savage in its cot became transformed into a more or less law-abiding and civilized member of society. The same historical record testifies to mankind's tragic inability to induce a parallel sublimation of the integrative tendency. Yet, to say it again, both the glory and the pathology of the human condition derive from our powers of self-transcendence, which are equally capable of turning us into artists, saints or killers, but more likely into killers. Only a small minority is capable of canalizing the self-transcending urges into creative channels. For the vast majority, throughout history, the only fulfilment of its need to belong, its craving for communion, was identification with clan, tribe, nation, Church, or party, submission to its leader, worship of its symbols, and uncritical, child-like acceptance of its emotionally saturated system of beliefs. Thus we are faced with a contrast between the mature restraint of the self-assertive tendency and the immature vagaries of the integrative tendency, strikingly revealed whenever the group-mind takes over from the individual mind, whether at a political rally or in the psychological laboratory.
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