Theodor W. Adorno

After the 2nd world war and the defeat of Nazi Germany. American and European psychologists were horrified by the excesses of the Nazi regime.

Some psychologists thought that the Germans had a different kind of personality than the Americans.

They proposed that the Americans were a democratic society, and this democratic society was possible, because the American individuals were democratic individuals.

They proposed that the Americans did not have great respect for authority, whereas the Germans were authoritarian people, that they respected people in power and that is why they obeyed the orders to kill, maim, torture, persecute and in general oppress the Jews, the communists, the homosexuals and others who were different from them.

Theodor Adorno

Theodor Adorno was among those psychologists who wrote a book called the authoritarian personality and he linked this authoritarian personality with the totality of a society and a culture.

It fell upon Doctor Milgram to test this theory. So, Milgram designed a study to test this hypothesis. The design of the study was like this, in one room separated by a glass window was a person seated in a chair and he was given a memory task.

This person was actually a confederate or a stooge. In a psychological study a confederate or a stooge, is somebody who's pretending to be doing something or experiencing some. So, this person was supposedly performing a memory task.

Now the actual subject of the experiment did not know that this person was in fact a confederate or a stooge. So, they would come in and their task was to be the lab assistant.

So, the lab was actually run by Doctor Milgram himself and the subject came in, he was told to administer an electric shock to the person in the other room, if they performed poorly.

So, the confederate was given a stimulus and they either gave the right answer or the wrong answer in case of the wrong answer the subject of the experiment who was supposedly the lab assistant would administer a very, very mild electric shock, but every time there was a mistake the subject would not only administer the electric shock to the confederate, but they would also increase the intensity of the shock.

Now the subjects were told that beyond this red marker is the danger zone and after this the intensity of the shock would physically harm the confederate.

So, with that knowledge the instructions were clear, they are supposed to increase the intensity every time there was a wrong answer.

The shocking result was that in Germany as well as in the United States of America, university students who were supposed to be more enlightened than your regular citizen administered shocks in the danger zone to the confederate. Now the confederate was actually not being delivered a shock, but they were screaming and shouting and yelling yet a majority of the subjects continued to increase the intensity of the electric shock.

The results were very shocking indeed unintended, it demolished the theory of authoritarian personality.

The study was replicated all over the world there was no culture in the world where people disobeyed. Yes, in every sample there were few people who did not.

So, we must give them credit that there were always some people who said sorry I'm not going to administer sharks in the danger zone, they left the study.

They also found that if the doctor whose lab assistant they were supposed to be was wearing a white lab coat the subjects were more likely to go into the danger zone and keep administering sharks.

Several conclusions were drawn, it is not that people across cultures are different in being obedient, it is not that people in different cultures are crueler than others.

The sad conclusion was that it is simple people doing simple jobs in which they find it very hard to disobey the orders. It is these people who deliver the cruelest treatments to others. 

The examples of police brutality in America killing of innocent people, examples of different law enforcement agencies all over the world, it is people following orders which are immoral which are inhuman and in fact against all norms of civilized behavior.

This study taught us that people would do anything to keep their jobs. While the study teaches us that most people would do anything to keep their jobs.

There are always some people who say no and that is where the hope lies let us be the people who ask why and when the answer is not satisfactory, we are able to say no.