Why do People Really Obey in Social Situations?

Have you ever thought about why we obey in certain social situations or what are the factors that lead us to obey someone? Obedience is simply a type of social influence in which a person relents to precise orders or instructions from figures of authority. So, obedience is simply an act of obeying the commands given by an authority. In this sense, do we obey every type of commands from our authority figure? This has been a persistent question throughout the years.

Milgram’s Obedience Study
In the 1960s, the social psychologist, Stanley Milgram did a famous research, which showed that people have a strong inclination to comply with authority. In his research, Milgram told the forty male volunteers that they were participating in a study about the effects of punishment in learning. There were learners who were the confederate (fake participants) and the participants were assigned as teachers (real participants). Each subject was told that his task was to help the learners (fake participants) learn a list of a pair words and each time they made a mistake they were asked to give an electric shock by flipping a switch which was marked from 15- 450 volts (which was fake but the subjects didn’t know about it). Each time the level of shock was increased until a dangerous shock was reached. Even though the shock was fake, the confederate acted as they were in pain and the experimenter wearing lab coat kept commanding them to continue. It was found that 65% (two-thirds) of participants continued to highest level of 450 volts and all the participants (100%) continued to 300 volts.

So, what can be the reason that the participants obeyed those shocks? It was found that there are different causes of obedience. In the case of the experiment, the symbol of authority could be seen (i.e. the lab coat worn by experimenter), fear of offending the authority figure, to get reward or fear of punishment can be some of the causes of obedience. People also justify their behavior by assigning responsibility to the authority rather than themselves.

We obey either to get rewards or because we want to avoid negative consequences of disobedience. In extreme situations, people even obey when they need to violate their own values or to commit crimes. Next time you obey a figure of authority, try to see why you are obeying.