‘Happy to have been of service’: The Yale archive as a window into the engaged followership of participants in Milgram's ‘obedience’ experiments

Abstract

This study examines the reactions of participants in Milgram's 'Obedience to Authority' studies to reorient both theoretical and ethical debate. Previous discussion of these reactions has focused on whether or not participants were distressed. We provide evidence that the most salient feature of participants' responses - and the feature most needing explanation - is not their lack of distress but their happiness at having participated. Drawing on material in Box 44 of Yale's Milgram archive we argue that this was a product of the experimenter's ability to convince participants that they were contributing to a progressive enterprise. Such evidence accords with an engaged followership model in which (1) willingness to perform unpleasant tasks is contingent upon identification with collective goals and (2) leaders cultivate identification with those goals by making them seem virtuous rather than vicious and thereby ameliorating the stress that achieving them entails. This analysis is inconsistent with Milgram's own agentic state model. Moreover, it suggests that the major ethical problem with his studies lies less in the stress that they generated for participants than in the ideologies that were promoted to ameliorate stress and justify harming others.

Revisioning Obedience: Exploring the Role of Milgram's Skills as a Filmmaker in Bringing His Shocking Narrative to Life

“…In the debrief sequence, Milgram uses humor to relieve the tension. The naïve subject as Everyman is no longer taunted by dark forces but offered the opportunity to contribute to good in the form of scientific understanding (see Haslam, Reicher, Millard, & MacDonald, in press).…”

Developing psychology’s archival sensibilities: Revisiting Milgram’s ‘obedience’ experiments.

“…Gibson, 2013aGibson, , b, 2014Haslam, Reicher, Millard & McDonald, 2015;Hollander, 2015;Millard, 2014;Nicholson, 2011;Perry, 2012Perry, , 2013Russell, 2011Russell, , 2014a. This sits alongside a smattering of earlier work (e.g.…”

“…are usually referred to as the 'obedience' experiments 1 (e.g. Gibson, 2013aGibson, , b, 2014Haslam, Reicher, Millard & McDonald, 2015;Hollander, 2015;Millard, 2014; Nicholson, 2011;Perry, 2012Perry, , 2013Russell, 2011Russell, , 2014a. This sits alongside a smattering of earlier work aim was thus to use the methodological tools of rhetorical and discursive approaches to social psychology (Billig, 1996;Potter & Wetherell, 1987) to explore the nature of the experimental encounter (for fuller details of these analyses, see Gibson, 2013aGibson, , b, 2014; for a recent analysis using the related technique of conversation analysis, see Hollander, 2015).…”

Not by Behaviour Alone: In Defence of Self-Reports and ‘Finger Movements’

“…We see this in the case of Milgram where, given the ambiguity about what participants were actually doing when they administered shocks, researchers have necessarily focused increasingly on how participants felt and thought about their experience (e.g., Haslam, Reicher, Millard, & McDonald, 2015;Hollander & Turowetz, 2018) and used an array of methods to try to tap into these emotions and cognitions (e.g., see Burger, Girgis, & Manning, 2011;Haslam, Reicher, & Birney, 2014;Slater et al, 2006). Importantly too, while this research has augmented our understanding of what is going on in the paradigm, most of these recent studies have explored behaviour which (for ethical reasons) is less obnoxious than that of Milgram's original research.…”