Revisiting the Milgram Experiments

Revisit fundamental principle
We are always under environmental control
So…
When are NOT being obedient?
When are NOT under stimulus control?

Observable, tangible evidence
Clothes
Are you wearing any?
Why?
For their function?
For their style?

Clothes are relevant because…?
Empirical proof of:
Culture
Shared culture
Controlling agencies
And…obedience

Milgram got it almost right
Different orientation
Reliance on agentic-autonomous approach
Much of his interpretation is commensurate with behavior analysis

What is culture?
"...all the variables affecting him [a person] which are arranged by other people” (p. 419).
“...culture…is...enormously complex and extraordinarily powerful” (p. 419).

What make it so powerful?
“Behavior comes to conform to the standards of a given community…”(p. 415).
“…the community extends the classification of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ to certain forms of behavior” (p. 417).
“…shape [this]…behavior to group standards are powerful” (p. 418).

Relevance?
“’Right’ and ‘wrong’ eventually have the force of ‘conforming’ and ‘non-conforming’” (p. 418).
“Instances of behavior which are nonconforming, but not otherwise aversive to the group are henceforth treated as if they were aversive” (p. 418).

Cultural control
“...social stimuli are important because the social reinforcers with which they are correlated are also important” (p.302)‏
“...imitation may be so skillful...that we are likely to attribute it to some special mode of interpersonal contact...(p. 304).

Controlling agencies
Government and Law
Religion
Psychotherapy
Economic Control
Education

Characteristics of controlling agencies
“...controlling agencies manipulate particular sets of variables (p. 333)”
“...the total culture, in which all our controlling agencies and all other features of the social environment work together simultaneously and with a single effect (p. 334).”

Establishment of obedience
“…the controlled individual is obedient to the dictates of the agency if he behaves in conformity with its controlling practices” (p. 338)‏

Relevance?
“By establishing obedient behavior, the controlling agency prepares for future occasions which it cannot foresee and for which an explicit repertoire, cannot, therefore, be prepare in advance…
When novel occasions arise to which the individual possess no response, he simply does what he is told.” (p.338)‏

Relevance to Milgram?
The individual subjects were predisposed to obedience due to prior learning history and the situational stimuli of the lab.
It is less of a surprise that so many people obeyed and more of a surprise that more people didn't given the extent to which controlling agencies regulate human behavior.

Relevance to Milgram?
Those that dissented and disobeyed did so because of the control of some agency, because it is not possible to do so otherwise.

Milgram’s Misses
Free will
Willing obedience
Independent entities
Able to define situations
Give self over to authority

Agreements
Moral ideals are inseparable from obedient attitude
Demand for obedience, only consistent element across variety of commands
Use of “rewards” when compliant
Situational stimuli are crucial
Experimenter becomes SD

Agreements
Situational obligations
Context is important
Avoidance as negative reinforcement for continued shocks
Physical presence of experimenter

Unacknowledged agreements
Subject is bound by authority system
“Ordinary men” were not SD's for administration of shocks
“Internalization” of social order
Internalized basis for obedience
Acceptance of ideology of legitimate authority

Unacknowledged agreements
Agentic state is the “...mental organization which enhances the likelihood of obedience.”
Obedience is the behavioral aspect of that state
Transformation to the agentic state is only partial for those who “disobeyed.”
Disobedience is transfer of stimulus control

Discussion
Culture and other people are always source of and under social-environmental control.
We are obedient to something all of the time.

Discussion
We need to appreciate more fully the impact of controlling agencies and culture in daily life as we are not the ones who are controlling much of it.
Propaganda plays a significant role in determining our behavior.

Real question is...
Not necessarily who is controlling the controllers (they are being controlled by contingencies), but who is controlling the variables that are in the environment?
S/he who controls the environment, controls the population.