Book Reading #37: Obedience to Authority

Chapters 9-15
Summary
In Chapter 9, Milgram discusses the effect of the group and discusses the difference between conformity and obedience. The main differences described are:
-Obedience to authority occurs within a hierarchy
-Conformity is imitation but obedience is not
-The prescription for actions is explicit in obedience but implicit in conformity
Milgram then describes two experiments performed in a group. In one there are three teachers (one of them being the subject) and the two actors that are teachers rebel. In the other experiment the subject does not do the shocking but performs other acts like asking the questions.

In chapter 10, the focus of the book changes to analyze the findings described in the first half of the book. Milgram looks deeper into the causes of obedience. In this chapter he defines the agentic state (the condition a person is in when he sees himself as an agent for carrying out another person’s wishes). He refers to this state as the keystone of their analysis.

In chapter 11 Milgram considers forces that impacted the subject before the experiment (the family structure, the institutional setting, and a reward system) and during the experiment (the perception of legitimate authority, the appearance of the authority figure, the lack of any competing authorities, and a visible link between the function of the authority and the commands being given). The agentic state is also further explored and its properties defined.

Chapter 12 focuses on strain and disobedience. Milgram discusses sources of strain, things that help to buffer the strain and how people address the issue of strain through avoidance, denial and subterfuges. He also discusses ways that people “blow off steam” from strain by verbally disagreeing with the authority, physically reacting through trembling and sweating and in some cases being disobedient by refusing to continue.

In chapter 13 Milgram considers a different theory about his experiments, aggression, and why it is erroneous to him. He discusses soldiers and a different experiment done by Buss and Berkowitz to investigate aggression.

In chapter 14 Milgram discusses the different assertions made against the findings of these experiments. The main assertions were:
-People in the study are the typical sort
-The subjects didn’t believe they were administering real shocks
-The findings cannot be applied outside the laboratory setting
Milgram addresses each of these in detail within the chapter.

In the final chapter Milgram relates his findings to the real world and discusses the Vietnam War. He includes a CBS interview with a Vietnam War soldier and relates the obedience in the war to the obedience he discovered in the lab.

Discussion
I enjoyed the second-half of the book more than the first-half. While all his findings in the first half were interesting, I enjoyed reading more about the analysis and the discussion that arose as a result of the findings. I appreciate how thorough the book was. Milgram even included the opposing side and made good points against it. I also appreciated how he related his findings to the real world to give us an idea on a grander scale than just that of the laboratory. I also thought it was interesting that these experiments were repeated in so many other places like in South Africa, Rome and Australia.