The main factor that influences obedience is ‘situation’. There are some other less significant factors which when combined, make obedience more likely. The situation can present obstacles to ethical decision-making. The current evidenced influential factors are nuanced and complex. There has been vast psychological research and literature since World War II on obedience, which will be analyzed and evaluated below.
Obedience
Obedience is to comply with an order from a person of higher status in a perceived hierarchy it is not conformity; to go along with a group, nor is it compliance, to change behavior upon request (Hewstone et al., 2014). The key element with obedience is the authority figure and that the action may be at odds with an individual’s morals. Research suggests that situation is the significant influence on obedience, the implication being, that all humans are capable of obedience when placed in a situation which meets the criteria. This was explored by the psychologist, Stanley Milgram in the 1960s. He devised an experiment, with the Holocaust as his reference point that helps us identify the factors in a situation that make people obey, even where they disagree (Porter, 2020). Milgram’s studies have been critiqued and replicated showing consistent results for situational factors (Dolinski, 2017) and are described as the greatest contribution to human knowledge and social psychology despite its flaws and ethical issues. This will be examined in more detail as the factors he applied, primed the outcome (Takooshian, 2000). It is important to recognize the limitations of the research as it cannot be reproduced due to ethical implications. Further, in practice, there were deceptions that would not apply in real life and we cannot ‘test’ real life without harm. Milgram’s work does provide insight into factors where he made variations and provided rich data. They do not reflect an individual’s reaction to authority in real life.
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Influential Factors
Obedience is accepted as driven by environment and situation rather than person-centered (LaPiere, 1934). The reaction of obedience emerges via individual layers of social attitudes, which are discharged when presented with a stimulus environment (Werhan et al, 2013). Stereotypes reinforce situational social cues and attitudes; it is generally socially acceptable to comply with authority figures in our relative chain of command and so when faced with the decision of obedience it is often one of internal conflict if there is a mismatch between our belief, familiarity or sense of self, and our actions (Miller, 1995). Milgram and others used stereotypes and stereotypical clinical environments, which provided legitimacy, making the scenario loaded from the outset to override individual differences. Zimbardo found similarly that environment was dominant but also that ‘roles’ were a factor for example. The results of the Stanford Prison Experiment showed that utilizing authoritarian techniques on prisoners resulted in obedience even though it was essentially role play. A combination of situational and role factors effectively ‘turned’ good people (APA, 2004). Milgram found that participants subconsciously homed in on certain elements of their environment where they incrementally obeyed, foot-in-the-door orders showing that a gradual commitment was influential. His variations show proximity is a factor, but it is not significant. If the authority figure is closer, the participant is more likely to comply. If the victim is physically further away the participant is more likely to comply (Blass, 2006), this is supported by Kilham and Mann in 1974 with directly or indirectly administering pain. Higher level obedience was found where individuals were not directly administering pain. Participants were able to exclude mental elements which would force a different decision - disobedience and did not utilize valuable options available to them (Bazerman, 2006). Festinger describes this as cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957), humans are motivated to maintain balance in our minds about our sense of self (Brehm, 1962). It may explain there is no such thing as a good person, just a reaction to a situation, whereby the most altruistic of people can change their attitude and consequently, their behavior. Later replications confirmed evidence for individual differences in empathy and desire for control to be present, but situation was still dominant (Burger, 2009).
In 1951, Solomon Asch began with studies that examined a person’s judgement of the length of lines (Russell, 2011). He discovered that co-participants were a factor influencing obedience (Milgram, 1978). The observer in the laboratory is expressed by research since 1960 as being a passive presence, not involved but giving a command politely, rather than a co-actor which would have been an influential factor (Zajonc, 1065), but if the person is alone, obedience is higher.
Daniel Baston researched ‘virtue ethics’; where we rely on the idea that we possess durable character traits to outweigh environmental and situational factors, but ethics and morals are shown to lose out depending on the situation (Schmidt, 2011). Milgram, created a primed, manufactured, climate for obedience to take place, all the ingredients for obedience were present and some argue it precluded the individual from utilizing their moral imagination, culminating in a moral ‘blind spot’ (Werhane et al., 2011). Milgram himself identifies he created the perfect storm, the factors in that storm were credibility (Yale), the legitimate scientific setting (some professions do carry a higher weight of credibility), and the responsibility to continue what they agreed to start. It presented an opportunity for supposed learning. The shocks were evidenced to the participant as not very painful and certainly not dangerous. There was a physical and visual distance from the learner but under the observational watch of an authority figure, in what may have felt clinical plus a time pressure, allowing little time for deeper processing all contributed (Werhane, 2011). Milgram did not test reality. He tested contrived environmental reaction but what caused the individual reaction, which disturbs many, is still being explored.
Social constructivism is a contemporary theory that offers the suggestion that our minds do not mirror experience, they reframe and reconstruct our experiences whilst interacting with the data present. The data, in this case, is all the ingredients presented to the participant which activated their social learning (Gentner et al., 1997). Werhane states that this process is always incomplete. Additional factors are familiarity, where one can dispense with what they do not recognize, causes us to miss data, follow the familiar, and potentially act in a short-sighted way. Further to the loaded situation, Bickman found obedience was higher where people dressed as a guard as opposed to a milkman (Bickman, 1969), supporting that visual imagery (cognitive data stored) or status is a factor, it does not account for a person who had never cognitively stored that data, which will be unique to every individual or possibly universal and this would need to be tested further as it can be at an organizational or individual level (Tyler, 2006). This is relevant today in workplaces (Wojciszke et al., 1998) and can lead to catastrophes such as the 2008 banking crisis (Werhane, 2013) or the Ford Pinto scenario (Gioia, 1992) clearly this topic would benefit from further research to gather data from real-life situations.
The very presence of an authority figure can lead to negative emotions such as stress or an impact on the sense of self and self-esteem, creating submissive behavior. The internal drive response is under stress, overlaid by past experiences (Moore, 2016) and produces a fight, flight, or freeze response (Poumpouras, 2020) to the situation. This is suggested in the two experiments by Zajonc referred to above. Literature suggests we have two processes that emerge when in the position of making a moral decision and they are heightened in the presence of an authority figure. We are thought to have a few primed evolutionary impulses which are biologically based toward survival, as we are looking at this paper from a social perspective, this will not be expanded on, save to say that one method of survival is to obey authority (Narvaez, 2008). As much as we desire approval, we dread condemnation, and therefore the choice to obey authority figures stems from a desire to avoid punishment, rejection and reprimand but it is still a choice, albeit under stress (Selye, 1956).
In Milgram’s experiments, some participants admitted feeling no personal responsibility, they discharged it to the authority figure, this links back to the Holocaust trials of officers carrying out atrocities in the names of their superiors, feeling detached from the acts themselves. An external locus of control allows the person to feel that what happens is outside of their control, they are more likely to be obedient if they can distance themselves without any personal responsibility or damage to their sense of self or ego. In 1991, Blass found that there was a link between internal locus of control and resistance to obedience and this is supported by Rotter, who in 1966 demonstrated that where people had an internal locus of control there were less influenced by others. This dimension is built from early childhood experiences which feed into individual differences (Liable et al., 2000). An Austrian study in 1985 by Schurz demonstrated a way of dealing with complex or difficult emotions is to discharge them or process by splitting, denial, projection or transference. Milgram conveniently catered for this by shielding the view of the teacher. Milgram described the participants as entering an agentic state, allowing for detachment.
Reward power is very attractive to an individual as Skinner was able to demonstrate. If there is a reward or collective good as the outcome of obedience, the individual may be more likely to comply and we have a recent example of this with the Covid-19 global pandemic. Thinking solely about the UK, we have seen fairly high levels of obedience as we were instructed to ‘save the NHS’. The UK is a democratic country, accustomed to freedom and for us to comply it was more sensible to create a feeling of sacrifice or protection. Collectivist cultures for which the backbone of cooperation and compliance is crucial to the survival of society, act in the interests of keeping that framework stable (Triandis H. 1988). An individualistic culture may possess more individuals who feel comfortable behaving independently, if a culture is based around being less likely to conform this will be present in the individual differences of that person (Werhane et al., 2011). Later studies accounted for the fact that a person may possess both collectivist and individualistic traits and this is based on attempts to measure tendencies and the causes or consequences of their behavior (Triandis, 2018). In 2009 Burger, produced a study which found no differences arose from gender, this was also supported by Blass in 2012 who studied cross-culture variations too, so it appears gender is not an influential factor.
Conclusion
We might argue obedience cannot be tested in reality but it is tested daily, in testament that most people do not commit regular daily harm to others. The majority accept personal responsibility for their actions and obey social rules. In reverse, it would be interesting to test the actions of a ‘bad person’ in obeying an order to help or rescue and examine if they would comply given the right situation. A contemporary example of disobedience can be witnessed in the HMCS Family Law Courts, where a mother disobeys a court order to hand over her children to a perpetrator and risks sanctions. Domestic abuse itself is hauntingly similar to Milgram’s experiment in many ways and perhaps if we use the research to analyze domestic abuse, we can support the 1 in 3 women who suffer it currently (Clemente et al., 2021). If contemporary mindfulness techniques were used in a replication, it may prove impossible to get any participant to obey. Whilst we cannot recreate the studies due to ethical issues, (Bettelheim, cited in Blass, 2004) values, cultures, and lifestyles develop and evolve meaning that the Milgram study would not be directly comparable to today (Orne, 1968), but we can see from recent studies (Santa Clara, 2006) that an explanation which blames ‘the 1960’s culture’ falls away and that obedience transcends time to kneel before the right situation.
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