摘要:

The experiments of Stanley Milgram on obedience to authority have achieved a truly remarkable visibility, one that is rare in the social sciences. Although conducted over 30 years ago, Milgram's research is currently one of the most widely cited programs of studies in psychology. From their inception, the obedience studies have also been controversial. For many, they reveal something very illuminating about human nature. They have also been, however, the recipient of scathing ethical and methodological criticism. While the controversial features of Milgram's research have been well documented, the substantive core of Milgram's concern, namely obedience to malevolent authority, has not received correspondingly careful attention. The main objectives of the articles in this issue are to track the progress of the impact of the obedience research in contemporary research and thought, and to suggest directions for the future. This introduction to the present issue provides an empirical and conceptual overview of Milgram's research and concludes by highlighting some major themes in the papers to follow.

ISSN:0022-4537    

DOI:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01331.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Milgram's original paradigm for studying obedience to authority is briefly described, and the main results are summarized. Personal observations of the conduct of the initial studies give added context for interpreting the results. Psychologists' reactions to the Milgram experiments are discussed in terms of(1) rejecting the research on ethical grounds, (2) explaining away the results as expressions of trivial phenomena, (3) subsuming obedience to destructive authority under other explanatory rubrics, and (4) endorsing or rejecting the results in terms of their perceived social relevance or irrelevance.

ISSN:0022-4537    

DOI:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01332.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The significance of the Milgram obedience experiments resides inevitably in the constructions of these studies—in the meaning and interpretations that this research holds for students and researchers. This paper reviews these constructions, with an emphasis upon the domains of relevance that have been associated with the obedience experiments. Considered first are issues bearing on the internal validity of the obedience paradigm. A brief historical excursion then examines Hannah Arendt's thesis of the “banality of evil,” a thesis with a powerful and controversial legacy of its own. To understand what those who are encountering the Milgram experiments for the first time are learning, I consider next the manner in which the ecological validity of the obedience research is discussed in contemporary texts. The paper concludes with a review of recent conceptual analyses of evil from the perspective of the obedience experi

ISSN:0022-4537    

DOI:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01333.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This article reassesses the role of obedience to authority in the Milgram experiment and in the Holocaust. I argue that the term “obedience” can be used to both describe and explain the behavior of subjects in Milgram's experiment, and that a failure to distinguish the two uses conceptually has led to an inflated sense of the extent to which Milgram's experiment demonstrates underlying obedience to authority. The article also reviews empirical evidence and alternative analyses to show that when authority influences behavior in the experiment, it may do so for reasons other than the subjects' felt obligation to obey. Finally, I suggest that contemporary history presents a more complex and problematic view of the Holocaust than that implied by social psychology's application of obedience to author

ISSN:0022-4537    

DOI:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01334.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

One outgrowth of Milgram's (1974) research is the study of public opinion about obedience norms. Extending Kelman and Hamilton's (1989) research on crimes of obedience in the military, this article explores crimes of obedience and crimes of conformity in the workplace. Random samples of the residents of Washington, DC, Moscow, Russia, and Tokyo, Japan were presented four vignettes about organizational wrongdoing. Manipulations included the influence situation (autonomy, conformity, or obedience) and the actor's position in the hierarchy (subordinate vs. midlevel authority). As expected, the actor's responsibility was greatest when he acted autonomously or was an authority. In addition, authorities were excused less than subordinates for having conformed or obeyed. Impacts of both influence situation and hierarchy were larger in Japan and Russia than in the United States.

ISSN:0022-4537    

DOI:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01335.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Behavior in the Milgram paradigm is rich with meanings for the identities of all three interactants—experimenter, teacher, and learner. The desire to construct desirable self‐images and social impressions is among the causal forces driving behavior in the Milgram paradigm. American college students valued disobedient teachers over obedient teachers, but they also valued polite disobedience over defiant disobedience. It is not only necessary to find the will to disobey the experimenter, it is also necessary to find a socially appropriate way to disobey. Russian participants' perceptions of teachers who were politely obedient, politely disobedient, and defiantly disobedient differed only in an interaction with the participants' SES. Russian participants looked to the hierarchical structure of the social situation (experimenter, teacher, learner) and not the behavior of individual teachers when they assigned responsibility for the learner's shocks. The person‐perception vignette methodologies used in the present study can tap the conclusions of the automatic inferences that create the symbolic meanings of behaviors in the Milgram paradigm. The range of mediating mechanisms necessary to explain the shock‐delivering lever presses in the Milgram paradigm includes some that fall outside the “obedience” metaphor in general and Milgram's “Agentic State” in particular. Behaviors observed in the context of the Milgram “Obedience” Paradigm are, at once, the most visible, puzzling, and unimaginable acts quantified in experimenta

ISSN:0022-4537    

DOI:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01336.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Explanations of Milgram's findings have traditionally focused on a priori qualities of the situation and/or the actors, which are presumed to operate more or less simultaneously to produce obedience or defiance. Such a perspective largely overlooks the unfolding and evolving nature of both obedience and defiance. This article develops a contrasting, sequential model. A specific hypothesis is advanced: The sooner in the course of the experiment a subject begins to show notable resistance, the more likely he will be to end up defiant. Reanalysis of data collected by Milgram for his “Bridgeport” condition supports this hypothesis. The effects of early resistance are discussed in terms of two processes: (a) An interpersonal process that works to jam the authority's prods and break the momentum he imparts to the interaction; and (b) a psychological process that works to erode the subject's rationalization for continuing and spurs him to search for justification for stopp

ISSN:0022-4537    

DOI:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01337.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

A phenomenological analysis of the plight of the Milgram subject is conducted. It is concluded that the subject who continues to give shocks should not be seen as deciding to inflict serious harm on another, but as torn between two incompatable perspects on the meaning of continuation, one of which is enforced by the readings of the meanings of the actions of the experimenter. Next, drawing on the laws governing principal‐agent relationships, a taxonomy of situations in which an authority directs the actions of a subordinate is suggested. Importantly, in different cells of the taxonomy, legal codes assign sharply different degrees of responsibility to the agent and the principal for harms that result from their joint projects; in the Milgram situation the entire responsibility for harms done rests on the experimenter. Finally, an experiment that demonstrates “constructive obedience” is pres

ISSN:0022-4537    

DOI:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01338.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The Utrecht Studies on Obedience, a series of 19 experiments, demonstrated that obedience is extremely high when the violence to be exerted is a contemporary form of mediated violence, and remains high even when the subjects receive detailed information about the task in advance. Observation of the subjects and analysis of data from questionnaires and the debriefing show that the subject's attitude to the experimenter's commands is critical to very critical, and that they found it unpleasant and stressful to carry out the task. This stress was not, however, sufficient to make the subjects disobedient. They attempted to hide their stress from the victim and to act as if nothing was wrong, displaying the behavior of an official. The explanation for the high level of obedience should not be sought in the inability of the subjects to resist the scientific authority (see the results of the condition of Legal Liability), but in their attitude to social institutions and their distant relationship with fellow citizens. Active role playing offers an attractive opportunity for ethically acceptable obedience research.

ISSN:0022-4537    

DOI:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01339.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Largely drawing on the findings and reasoning of Milgram (1974), a laboratory experiment was conducted to assess the impact of authoritative directives and actor observability on the use of race as a selection criterion in hiring. A significant main effect for instructions was found, suggesting that, when told by a superior to do so, members of organizations may use race as a criterion in making hiring decisions. The precise form of this compliance effect varied, however, as a function of the type of dependent variable under consideration [attitudinal (i.e., ratings of Black job candidates) vs. behavioral (i.e., number of Black candidates chosen for final job interviews)]. No effects for actor observability were detected. These results are discussed in terms of their theoretical, methodological, and practical implications in regard to organizational wrongdoing, particularly institutional racism.

ISSN:0022-4537    

DOI:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01340.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY