I obey and obey: what are people capable of who voluntarily transfer power over themselves to someone else.
We want to believe that behind the terrible pages in the history of mankind - wars, mass terror, genocide - there is someone completely different from us: supervillains, demons ... in extreme cases, incurable psychopaths. After all, can we really identify ourselves with those who tortured and killed innocent people and imagine that we ourselves are capable of such a thing? Nevertheless, the archival materials of the trials of the executioners of the Holocaust indicate otherwise: ordinary people became criminals. Philosopher and journalist Hannah Arendt describes Adolf Eichmann, the direct organizer of the massacres in the concentration camps, as an ordinary bureaucrat who constantly justified himself "following orders from above."
The question of the degree of responsibility can also be asked at a less global level - how often in our daily life do we act under external pressure? Who or what is actually behind our actions and how can we learn to act in harmony with ourselves?
Freedom of choice vs. authority.
"The experiment requires you to continue" was a simple phrase that caused perfectly normal people to shock strangers with 450 volts. Without any personal benefit, just because the experimenter ordered it.
This is the famous experiment of the social psychologist from Yale University Stanley Milgram.
Participants were offered two roles - "teacher" and "student". The organizers assured that the choice takes place in the process of an honest lot, but in reality the subject always got the role of the "teacher", while the "student" was the invited actor.
During the experiment, the "student" memorized pairs of words from a long list, and the "teacher" sitting in the next room checked his knowledge. For each wrong answer, the "teacher" had to punish the "student" with an electric discharge. Moreover, with each subsequent error, the voltage strength increased (from 15 to the aforementioned 450 volts). During the experiment, a scientist stood behind the subject's shoulder and directed his actions. Naturally, the actor behind the wall did not receive any discharge, but the "teacher" was convinced that everything was happening for real. When the voltmeter went off scale for 300 volts, the "victim" began to shout, and then there was silence and the answers of the "student" were no longer received.
The results of the experiment amazed both Milgram himself and the public - 65 percent of the subjects went to the end, despite the fact that they were aware of the effect of electric current on the body. The outcome was not influenced by either gender, nationality, age, or profession. “This study showed a strong willingness of normal adults to go very far, following the directions of authority,” Milgram commented on his experience.
Why does an influential opinion have such an effect on us and how does the human psyche work during unconditional acceptance and execution of an order? Part of the answer came from a team led by Patrick Haggard of University College London, who repeated Milgram's experiment in 2015. They went further and set a goal not only to prove a person's dependence on authority, but also to find out the degree of responsibility that a person feels when following instructions.
In Haggard's modification, "teacher" and "student" were in the same room, while both were real test subjects. The experimenter told the “teacher” which button to press: the one that would shock the “student” or the one after which nothing would happen. Earlier, Haggard found that when we lose responsibility for our behavior, the gap between action and result seems to us longer. That is why, after each pressing of the button, a sound signal was heard, and at the end of the experiment, the subjects were asked about the approximate length of the time interval between the press and the sound.
In addition, their brain activity was monitored using EEG. The “teachers” perceived the time span as longer than it actually was. At the same time, the activity of their brain during the experiment markedly decreased. Under the influence of authority, people lost control over decisions and turned over the control panel of their behavior to a “mentor”.
Human vs. crowd.
Have you ever wondered how to create your own sect or army of loyal fighters? Hopefully not. But history teacher Ron Jones from the American city of Paolo Alto in the late 60s created a community of followers in a week.
True, for scientific purposes - he tried to understand why ordinary people in Germany turned into adherents of the Third Reich.
The test subjects were Jones' students (adolescents, 16 years old). First, the teacher talked in class about the power of community and discipline that supposedly promotes better learning, and introduced a series of rules, such as calling "Mr. Jones" with every question and "seating correctly" at the desk.
Every day, Jones convinced his students of their exceptionalism. The teenagers took part with great enthusiasm. By the third day, the group bore the name "The Third Wave", had its own slogan and greeting, reminiscent of the Nazi. Gradually, students from other classes began to join them. The students started developing community rules on their own and actively recruited children from neighboring schools. Some of the students voluntarily reported to Jones about the "treacherous" violations within the group.
On the fourth day, Jones told the charges that The Third Wave was part of a national political program to improve the lives of young people, and announced that it would soon be televised. About 200 community members gathered to watch the promised announcement. Then Jones finally admitted that everything that was happening was just an experiment.
“The disappearance of the conscious personality, the predominance of the unconscious personality, the same direction of feelings and ideas, determined by suggestion, and the desire to immediately turn the suggested ideas into action - these are the main features that characterize an individual in a crowd. He ceases to be himself and becomes an automaton, in which his will does not exist ” (Gustave Le Bon).
Teens from the "Third Wave" were motivated not only by a sense of superiority, but also by the conformal behavior that is inherent in a person in a group. The phenomenon of conformism is clearly reflected in the experiments of the American psychologist Solomon Asch. A group of people received two drawings: the first showed one vertical line, the second - three different sizes. Participants in turn were asked to answer - which of the lines from the second figure has the same length as the line on the first. The answer was obvious, but there was only one uninterested in the group - the real subject, who answered at the end. The rest were instructed in advance to give the wrong answer. The results exceeded all expectations - more than half of the subjects followed the majority of the mistakes.
Another revealing study was conducted by the Turkish scientist Muzafer Sheriff.
A series of experiments called "Summer Camp" was aimed at investigating intergroup conflicts, but also clearly demonstrated dependent behavior.
The sheriff and his colleagues put the test subjects - boys 11-12 years old - in a summer camp. At first, the guys actively made new friends for themselves. Then the experimenters divided the participants into two groups so that those who managed to make friends were on opposite sides of the barricades. Scientists regularly organized sports competitions between groups, pitting them in competition. For the sake of the interests of their team, the boys quickly abandoned their former friendly sympathies and openly showed hostility to their rivals.
How many of us can boast that we have never done the same? Have you ever gone to a corporate party with your colleagues, although you would rather have been at home with a book all evening? Did they pay the mandatory fees at the child's school, simply because “all parents do this”, without figuring out where exactly this amount goes? Did you order pizza and rolls to the office, instead of taking a day off on your birthday and spending it with your loved ones or alone?
Personality vs. social roles.
Surely you have heard the parental “you're a girl” or “you're a boy” more than once, suggesting a set of behavioral stereotypes, or observed how an employee changes dramatically after being appointed to a managerial position. We all have a certain set of social roles, and we in one way or another strive to correspond to them. This is normal, as long as the mask does not replace personality and deep values.
Pathological transformation under the influence of roles is clearly demonstrated by the famous Stanford prison experiment by Philip Zimbardo, conducted in 1971.
The subjects were college students who had previously passed the test for mental stability. They were placed in a makeshift prison - the basement of Stanford University, divided into two groups - "prisoners" and "guards". The subjects identified themselves so strongly with the roles that Zimbardo interrupted the experiment earlier than planned due to the brutal violence that the "jailers" had on the "prisoners". Later, the scientist admitted that he himself was "stuck" in the role of a powerful experimenter and watched what was happening longer than he should have.
In 2002, psychologists Steve Reacher and Alex Haslam repeated the experience, turning it into a documentary series on the BBC. The difference of 30 years did not change anything - the "guards" humiliated the "prisoners" this time too.
Similar situations took place in real life. In the book “The Lucifer Effect. Why good people turn into villains Zimbardo describes a famous case of torture of Iraqi prisoners in the American military prison of Abu Ghraib. Subsequently, the scientist was in the defense team of one of the overseers and argued that there is much in common between Abu Ghraib and the Stanford experiment.
Mindfulness vs ...
Psychologists have long been trying to understand the reasons for the desire to shift responsibility. Sigmund Freud believed that this liberates the "repressed unconscious", Gustave Le Bon - that in this way we get rid of the social superstructure and give free rein to natural instincts. But perhaps it is not so important to find a reason, how to answer the question "What to do?"
Leadership consultant and bestselling author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey, called the systematic loss of control over life "reactive behavior." In contrast, he proposed "proactive" based on personal mission and effective self-management. He argued that a person who looked inside himself and understood individual values, significant goals and needs is able to consciously choose his actions, decisions and reactions in any situation, regardless of circumstances or opinions.
It is no coincidence that Covey's book was sold in millions of copies - today more and more people want to work for themselves, deny established social roles and question their authority. Often these trends are perceived negatively, but what if you look at them from the point of view of conscious existence?
We are gradually learning to live “here and now” and more often we ask ourselves the questions “what exactly do I want?”, “Why do I need this?”. Selfish? May be. But isn't this a panacea for illegal intrusion into our personality?
We want to believe that behind the terrible pages in the history of mankind - wars, mass terror, genocide - there is someone completely different from us: supervillains, demons ... in extreme cases, incurable psychopaths. After all, can we really identify ourselves with those who tortured and killed innocent people and imagine that we ourselves are capable of such a thing? Nevertheless, the archival materials of the trials of the executioners of the Holocaust indicate otherwise: ordinary people became criminals. Philosopher and journalist Hannah Arendt describes Adolf Eichmann, the direct organizer of the massacres in the concentration camps, as an ordinary bureaucrat who constantly justified himself "following orders from above."
The question of the degree of responsibility can also be asked at a less global level - how often in our daily life do we act under external pressure? Who or what is actually behind our actions and how can we learn to act in harmony with ourselves?
Freedom of choice vs. authority.
"The experiment requires you to continue" was a simple phrase that caused perfectly normal people to shock strangers with 450 volts. Without any personal benefit, just because the experimenter ordered it.
This is the famous experiment of the social psychologist from Yale University Stanley Milgram.
Participants were offered two roles - "teacher" and "student". The organizers assured that the choice takes place in the process of an honest lot, but in reality the subject always got the role of the "teacher", while the "student" was the invited actor.
During the experiment, the "student" memorized pairs of words from a long list, and the "teacher" sitting in the next room checked his knowledge. For each wrong answer, the "teacher" had to punish the "student" with an electric discharge. Moreover, with each subsequent error, the voltage strength increased (from 15 to the aforementioned 450 volts). During the experiment, a scientist stood behind the subject's shoulder and directed his actions. Naturally, the actor behind the wall did not receive any discharge, but the "teacher" was convinced that everything was happening for real. When the voltmeter went off scale for 300 volts, the "victim" began to shout, and then there was silence and the answers of the "student" were no longer received.
The results of the experiment amazed both Milgram himself and the public - 65 percent of the subjects went to the end, despite the fact that they were aware of the effect of electric current on the body. The outcome was not influenced by either gender, nationality, age, or profession. “This study showed a strong willingness of normal adults to go very far, following the directions of authority,” Milgram commented on his experience.
Why does an influential opinion have such an effect on us and how does the human psyche work during unconditional acceptance and execution of an order? Part of the answer came from a team led by Patrick Haggard of University College London, who repeated Milgram's experiment in 2015. They went further and set a goal not only to prove a person's dependence on authority, but also to find out the degree of responsibility that a person feels when following instructions.
In Haggard's modification, "teacher" and "student" were in the same room, while both were real test subjects. The experimenter told the “teacher” which button to press: the one that would shock the “student” or the one after which nothing would happen. Earlier, Haggard found that when we lose responsibility for our behavior, the gap between action and result seems to us longer. That is why, after each pressing of the button, a sound signal was heard, and at the end of the experiment, the subjects were asked about the approximate length of the time interval between the press and the sound.
In addition, their brain activity was monitored using EEG. The “teachers” perceived the time span as longer than it actually was. At the same time, the activity of their brain during the experiment markedly decreased. Under the influence of authority, people lost control over decisions and turned over the control panel of their behavior to a “mentor”.
Human vs. crowd.
Have you ever wondered how to create your own sect or army of loyal fighters? Hopefully not. But history teacher Ron Jones from the American city of Paolo Alto in the late 60s created a community of followers in a week.
True, for scientific purposes - he tried to understand why ordinary people in Germany turned into adherents of the Third Reich.
The test subjects were Jones' students (adolescents, 16 years old). First, the teacher talked in class about the power of community and discipline that supposedly promotes better learning, and introduced a series of rules, such as calling "Mr. Jones" with every question and "seating correctly" at the desk.
Every day, Jones convinced his students of their exceptionalism. The teenagers took part with great enthusiasm. By the third day, the group bore the name "The Third Wave", had its own slogan and greeting, reminiscent of the Nazi. Gradually, students from other classes began to join them. The students started developing community rules on their own and actively recruited children from neighboring schools. Some of the students voluntarily reported to Jones about the "treacherous" violations within the group.
On the fourth day, Jones told the charges that The Third Wave was part of a national political program to improve the lives of young people, and announced that it would soon be televised. About 200 community members gathered to watch the promised announcement. Then Jones finally admitted that everything that was happening was just an experiment.
“The disappearance of the conscious personality, the predominance of the unconscious personality, the same direction of feelings and ideas, determined by suggestion, and the desire to immediately turn the suggested ideas into action - these are the main features that characterize an individual in a crowd. He ceases to be himself and becomes an automaton, in which his will does not exist ” (Gustave Le Bon).
Teens from the "Third Wave" were motivated not only by a sense of superiority, but also by the conformal behavior that is inherent in a person in a group. The phenomenon of conformism is clearly reflected in the experiments of the American psychologist Solomon Asch. A group of people received two drawings: the first showed one vertical line, the second - three different sizes. Participants in turn were asked to answer - which of the lines from the second figure has the same length as the line on the first. The answer was obvious, but there was only one uninterested in the group - the real subject, who answered at the end. The rest were instructed in advance to give the wrong answer. The results exceeded all expectations - more than half of the subjects followed the majority of the mistakes.
Another revealing study was conducted by the Turkish scientist Muzafer Sheriff.
A series of experiments called "Summer Camp" was aimed at investigating intergroup conflicts, but also clearly demonstrated dependent behavior.
The sheriff and his colleagues put the test subjects - boys 11-12 years old - in a summer camp. At first, the guys actively made new friends for themselves. Then the experimenters divided the participants into two groups so that those who managed to make friends were on opposite sides of the barricades. Scientists regularly organized sports competitions between groups, pitting them in competition. For the sake of the interests of their team, the boys quickly abandoned their former friendly sympathies and openly showed hostility to their rivals.
How many of us can boast that we have never done the same? Have you ever gone to a corporate party with your colleagues, although you would rather have been at home with a book all evening? Did they pay the mandatory fees at the child's school, simply because “all parents do this”, without figuring out where exactly this amount goes? Did you order pizza and rolls to the office, instead of taking a day off on your birthday and spending it with your loved ones or alone?
Personality vs. social roles.
Surely you have heard the parental “you're a girl” or “you're a boy” more than once, suggesting a set of behavioral stereotypes, or observed how an employee changes dramatically after being appointed to a managerial position. We all have a certain set of social roles, and we in one way or another strive to correspond to them. This is normal, as long as the mask does not replace personality and deep values.
Pathological transformation under the influence of roles is clearly demonstrated by the famous Stanford prison experiment by Philip Zimbardo, conducted in 1971.
The subjects were college students who had previously passed the test for mental stability. They were placed in a makeshift prison - the basement of Stanford University, divided into two groups - "prisoners" and "guards". The subjects identified themselves so strongly with the roles that Zimbardo interrupted the experiment earlier than planned due to the brutal violence that the "jailers" had on the "prisoners". Later, the scientist admitted that he himself was "stuck" in the role of a powerful experimenter and watched what was happening longer than he should have.
In 2002, psychologists Steve Reacher and Alex Haslam repeated the experience, turning it into a documentary series on the BBC. The difference of 30 years did not change anything - the "guards" humiliated the "prisoners" this time too.
Similar situations took place in real life. In the book “The Lucifer Effect. Why good people turn into villains Zimbardo describes a famous case of torture of Iraqi prisoners in the American military prison of Abu Ghraib. Subsequently, the scientist was in the defense team of one of the overseers and argued that there is much in common between Abu Ghraib and the Stanford experiment.
Mindfulness vs ...
Psychologists have long been trying to understand the reasons for the desire to shift responsibility. Sigmund Freud believed that this liberates the "repressed unconscious", Gustave Le Bon - that in this way we get rid of the social superstructure and give free rein to natural instincts. But perhaps it is not so important to find a reason, how to answer the question "What to do?"
Leadership consultant and bestselling author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey, called the systematic loss of control over life "reactive behavior." In contrast, he proposed "proactive" based on personal mission and effective self-management. He argued that a person who looked inside himself and understood individual values, significant goals and needs is able to consciously choose his actions, decisions and reactions in any situation, regardless of circumstances or opinions.
It is no coincidence that Covey's book was sold in millions of copies - today more and more people want to work for themselves, deny established social roles and question their authority. Often these trends are perceived negatively, but what if you look at them from the point of view of conscious existence?
We are gradually learning to live “here and now” and more often we ask ourselves the questions “what exactly do I want?”, “Why do I need this?”. Selfish? May be. But isn't this a panacea for illegal intrusion into our personality?
