Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:38:29.535Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 2 - A Brief History of the Experimental Research on Obedience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2024

Emilie A. Caspar
Affiliation:
Universiteit Gent, Belgium
Get access

Summary

This chapter shows how human obedience is captured in an experimental setup, and how such research methodology can help us understand how people can comply with orders to hurt another person on a neurological level. By reviewing past experimental research, such as the rat decapitation study of Landis, the studies of Stanley Milgram on destructive obedience, and the Utrecht studies on obedience to non-ethical requests, this chapter shows that under certain circumstances, a majority of individuals could be coerced into inflicting physical or psychological harm on others at levels generally deemed unacceptable, even without any tangible social pressures such as military court or job loss. The chapter also describes a novel method where people can administer real painful electric shocks to someone else in exchange for a small monetary reward, and describes how such a method allows neuroscience investigations that would focus on the neural mechanisms associated with obedience.

Type
Chapter
Information
Just Following Orders
Atrocities and the Brain Science of Obedience
, pp. 57 - 86
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×