What is wrong with listening to instructions?

‘Listen to mummy and daddy, we know what is best for you.’ ‘Do your homework before you watch television.’ These are some things that people older than you may tell you but should you ALWAYS do what they ask you to do?

In this post, we will be learning about how obeying every instruction given to us may not be as good as it sounds at three levels of difficulty.

Level 1 (4-9 years old)- Should I always listen to people older than me?

Just because a stranger is older than me, should I listen to them? My mummy and daddy would say no and I’m sure that your parents would think so too. But should I always follow instructions that are given to me even if I think that they are not good for me?

A researcher wanted to see if people would be willing to listen to instructions even when it harmed another person. The participant (person who takes part in experiments) was told to give electric shocks to a person that got more and more painful. Throughout the test, the participant can hear the person shouting in pain because of the electric shocks. The participant knew that he/she could leave the experiment at any time if he/she did not want to hurt the person anymore.

The results showed that the participants listened to the researcher and had given the most painful electric shock to the person! Look at the picture below, the blue part is the people who DID give the most painful shock and the orange part is the people who did not. Do you think that it is a lot of people who gave the most painful shock?

This tells us that people are willing to listen to what someone older tells them to do even if they know that what they are doing would hurt another person. Maybe this means that we should think carefully before following instructions given, even if it is from mummy and daddy.

Level 2 (10-14 years old)- Do people obey authority figures more than what we think they would?

‘Stop moving and put your hands in the air!’ Okay, maybe I do watch too much cop drama on television but if a police officer yells that, I’m pretty sure without a doubt that most of us would just obey. Even when driving, when a police car sounds the siren, the driver would move to the side of the road and stop. This is evidence of obedience to authority figures. To what extent should I obey authority?

A researcher investigated if people are willing to obey instructions given by a researcher from a well-known University (Yale University).

Dependent variable (variable that the researcher is measuring): Maximum level of shock that the participant would be willing to give a person.

Participants were assigned the role of a teacher and were introduced to a shock generator with 30 switches that increased by 15 volts (i.e. 15 volts, 30 volts, 45 volts…) with the final switch marked as ‘XXX’. Another person, a stooge (person who is secretly working with the researcher) was given the role of the learner. The participant was told to give an electric shock that increased by 15 volts to the stooge when the stooge made a mistake on the test (but don’t worry! Nothing happens to him). The participant and stooge were in different rooms but the participant was able to hear the stooge. The stooge’s response was recorded in advance to ensure that the participant would have to reach the highest shock level on the shock generator. The researcher had constantly prodded the participant to encourage him/her to continue to administer shocks but the participants knew that they could withdraw (pull out of the experiment) at any time if they felt uncomfortable.

At the same time, students were told about the procedure of the experiment and were asked to predict the behaviour of a 100 participants.

The results showed that 65% of participants had administered the highest level of electric shock even when the stooge had stopped giving feedback (to suggest that he became unconscious)! You can see the percentage in the image below. However, in the students’ predictions, all students predicted that only a few people would administer all the electric shocks to the stooge.

Thus, people’s expectations of obedience to authority differs greatly from what people actually do when confronted with authority figures.

Level 3 (15 years old and above)- What are some factors that influence obedience to authority figures?

Obedience is something that is very common, especially in an Asian setting where parents rule the household with a heavy hand. In our country (Singapore), obedience to authority is also very prominent, which can be seen from the strict charges when violating certain laws (for vandalism and bringing durians on public transport) to National Service that men are obligated to undergo. Thus, the question we are investigating is what are some factors that influence the extent to which we obey authority?

A researcher wanted to investigate to what extent people would listen to an authoritative figure even if it is at the expense of harming an innocent individual. Participants were assigned the role of the ‘teacher’ through a rigged draw while the stooge (person who is secretly working with the researcher) was the ‘student’. The participant was deceived (falsely led) into believing that he was involved in a memory experiment. The participant was introduced to the shock generator with switches at 15 volt increments with the last switch labelled ‘XXX’. The participant and stooge were placed in separate rooms where the participant was told that if the stooge made a mistake, he/she would have to deliver an electric shock at 15 volt increments. During the ‘Memory test’, the participant was able to receive feedback from the stooge in the form of screams and shouts (that unbeknownst to the participant was pre-recorded). Halfway through the ‘test’, the feedback received stopped, which suggested that the stooge was no longer conscious. The experimenter was only allowed to prod the participant 4 times and if the participant refused to continue, the actual experiment would be terminated. Participants knew their rights to withdraw from the experiment at any time.

At the same time, a group of Yale students were told the procedure of the experiment and were asked to predict the behaviour of a 100 participants.

The results showed that 65% of participants had administered the highest level of shock. However, in the students’ predictions, all students predicted that only a minority of people would actually administer all the electric shocks to the stooge.

Because of this groundbreaking research, variations of the Milgram’s experiment were conducted that examined whether factors, like proximity between the participant and the stooge and the presence of disobedient group members in the role of ‘teachers’, would affect participants’ obedience to authority figures. The summary of the results can be seen in Graph 1.

In the proximity variation, the closer the proximity, the less likely participants would administer the highest level of shock (with a drop in obedience to 30%).

Independent variable (variable that the researcher is manipulating): Proximity between participant and stooge.

Dependent variable (variable that the researcher is measuring): Maximum level of shock that the participant would be willing to give the stooge.

In the group variation, disobedient group members, who challenged the experimenter, compared to obedient group members would be less likely to administer the highest level of shock (reducing obedience to 10% in the disobedient group!).

Independent variable: Group Factor (Obedient or Disobedient Group).

Dependent variable: Maximum level of shock that the participant would be willing to give a person.

Graph 1: Comparisons in obedience levels across studies (in percentage)

Thus, there are factors (and many others!) that can liberate the effects of obedience to authority.

Now let’s try to relate it to the real world! There is evidence of how blind obedience to authority may be very harmful with real events like the Mai Lai Massacre where soldiers were just ‘following orders from their commanding officer’, which had led to the death of many innocent and unarmed civilians. However, in saying this, it will be inefficient if the soldiers were to question every order given by his/her superior during wartime when enemies are approaching fast. So the question that we can think about would be where can we draw the line when simply following instructions or orders leads to blind obedience (where we follow instructions without thinking twice)?

Reference:

History.com Editors. (2009, November 09). My Lai Massacre. Retrieved July 24, 2020, from https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/my-lai-massacre-1#:~:text=The My Lai massacre was,Lai on March 16, 1968.

McLeod, S. A. (2007). The milgram experiment. Simply Psychology.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. The Journal of abnormal and social psychology, 67(4), 371.

Milgram, S. (1965). Liberating effects of group pressure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1(2), 127.

Parent Corner (Level 1)

After some conversations with a few friends (research assistants involved in education research), they mentioned that some teachers do take for granted that students (in Primary schools) understand diagrams in Science and Mathematics textbooks when in fact, students struggle relating such diagrams with the context. Thus, we had decided to introduce simple graphs to allow the younger children to gain more exposure to reduce the jump between pre-school and primary school. It would be great to get your child to talk about what they see in the graph to help them connect the context with the diagram by asking them questions like:

‘What do you see in this picture?’

‘What do you think it means?’

‘I think that this picture shows…’

‘What did you learn from this picture?’

These questions may help your child to develop a more scientific lens that may be helpful when the child progresses to higher levels in the education system.