Modern-day replications of one of history’s most disturbing social psychology experiments, the Milgram study, reveal what makes ordinary people obey an immoral order – and how to resist.
“One of the main factors that distinguishes rescuers from genocide perpetrators is the presence of role models in their early childhood,” [Emilie Caspar, a professor in experimental psychology at Ghent University in Belgium] says, based on her team’s research. “So, for instance, rescuers are more likely to have witnessed their parents or other relatives helping other human beings.”
Refusing to demonise a group of people, and cultivating a belief in shared humanity, may help fight persecution in those early stages, she says.
Most ethics boards cap how far you can go, since the original caused participants distress. It’s not too hard to replicate the effect without being a monster.
I would argue that the distress was a crucial component of the awakening of empathy that some participants experienced in the wake of the experiment, and that if you want a more empathetic society you’re going to wind up considering some “necessary evils”.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained as it were.
Milgram was certainly unethical by today’s standards but, at least anecdotally, I have yet to find a good replacement for intense emotional distress in training the kinds of behavior I want in humans.
If I want a society of thoughtful, empathetic, and psychologically strong individuals I expect that will come with an education system that’s willing to put people through some hardship.
Well, no, putting people through distress in this manner isn’t a necessary step to producing empathy, nor is hardship a way to reliably produce empathy. I thought so for a while, too, except there’s far too many people who suffer hardship only to turn it around and want to cause it to others.
What is shown to be effective is an educational approach, as learning about power dynamics and injustice tends to reduce obedience. Authoritarians fear education because it creates that kind of person, hence why “colleges are woke” and such persist. That, and finding common ground with “outgroups”, as people are much more empathetic to those they identify with.
The problem with that is that, once again anecdotally, emotional distress is great at creating people that are volatile.
I would love to be shown a better way to do this. I have found that training people to be willing to escalate a situation rapidly and willing to endanger themselves or others to accomplish a goal is difficult to train without a pretty substantial amount of hardship in the process.
Education may make people more vigilant to injustice, but how good is it at training people to go on the offensive? How many would be dictators would have been well serviced by a citizen with an emotional regulation problem?
Ironically, I can’t really get into detailed discussion right now because I’m literally walking to my social psych class I teach, lol.
To the first point though, take a step back and understand that more recent studies have shown empathy to be the normative state of humans. Humans, like most pack animals, need strong intuition and empathy to survive with both their own tribe and others.
That has limitations, of course, as we’re most empathetic to people we identify with or find similarities to. People fight for their kin, not necessarily their neighbor.
I recall a study… I forget the name (author name sounds like Nier) but they found that folks even cooperated more when wearing similar sports paraphernalia, even bridging racial divides. The stakes weren’t huge; just signing a petition, but you can’t necessarily ask for more from an academic paper.
As to the point of being on offense, that’s probably outside the realm of social psych but I’ll try with what I know. I know helping behaviors tend to get stronger when people feel they have the agency to do so. Studies are quite a bit more tame than taking arms or something, but the Good Samaritan study kinda shows this. People running late aren’t willing to help someone clearly in need, but people running early are. Imagine the parallel to society-- who has the money, the time, and the energy to help?
Edit: the comment on walking to class is real and not a flex, btw. T-minus 15 min now, though it’s only undergrad and we’re teaching love and friendship today, which is totally unrelated, lol.