The Milgram Experiment - Thomas Blass

Stanley Milgram has a great deal to teach us about followership and obedience. Thomas Blass, in an excellent article for The Art of Followership compendium, does a wonderful job summarizing how Milgram's relatively terrifying obedience experiments might comment/contribute to followership studies.

Milgram's studies, for those unfamiliar with them, tested the strange willingness most of us have to obey authority figures, even when the consequences of such obedience are immoral, unethical or destructive. A depressingly high number of test subjects revealed a willingness to obey orders, even when doing so might potentially risk the life of an innocent person. Having been tested and retested for decades, even across national borders, these tests have become a defining concern of many disciplines - psychology, sociology, anthropology, political scientists; there are all sorts of people still talking about the Milgram enigma.

Why would followers so regularly be willing to behave this way?

Blass makes an excellent application of Milgram's work to the followership conversation. One comment I found particularly interesting was the response of the U.S. Army to Milgram's work. Contrary to popular opinion, the Army has gone to great lengths to fight our tendency to foolishly obey, training officers in the early 1970's how to disobey illegitimate orders from superiors. Once again, it seems the military has something valuable to teach us.

It was also interesting to see the application being made in the legal world of Milgram's experiments. The argument is made that, given our propensity to obey authority figures, a person is not likely to question a request to search from police. Thus, care must be taken to ensure rights are protected.

I do question some of Blass' conclusions. For example, Blass argues Milgram does not tell us humans are by nature mean and nasty. While I understand and agree with part of Blass' argument, I do believe we would be wise not to underestimate our propensity for evil.

Blass also lists several important Milgram contributions to follower studies:

1. Destructive obedience is made possible when the authority's definition of reality is singularly accepted.
2. It happens when responsibility is shifted from follower to leader.
3. It happens when "counter-anthropomorphism" begins to occur. Using Milgram's term, destructive obedience occurs when people begin to ascribe human qualities to inanimate objects. The "experiment requires that we continue." Do this because "it is company policy." This is a particularly interesting application and, if I may say bluntly, very evident in the church. I've seen people behave terribly towards each other in the name of protecting policy or theology. LORD, save us from people who believe they alone are correct in every area of their theology! When we depersonalize people and personalize objects and ideas, we are moving into dangerous areas. I suspect this might be the most important application of Milgram's ideas.

Blass concludes that perhaps the best application of Milgram is for leaders to understand our natural propensity to obey and seek to channel those tendencies only for the good. Make leadership responsibilities an even more sacred trust...this is a very positive way of applying Milgram. A good encouragement.

This is a very good summary article and thought-provoking application of Milgram.