by Davi Barker Table of Contents C ontents The Problem .............................................. .............................................. 2 Previous Research .................................... ...................................... .. 2 Power and Obedience ................................ ................................ 2 Power and Decepon ................................. ................................. 4 Power and Compassion .............................. .............................. 4 Power and Hypocrisy .................................. .................................. 5 Purpose Of Further F urther Research ...................... 7 Hypotheses .................................... ................................................. ............. 7 Methods and Procedures ............................ ............................ 8 Ethical Concerns .................................... ......................................... ..... 9 Weaknesses .................................. .............................................. ............ 10 Data Analysis ................................... ............................................ ......... 10 Conclusion ................................... ................................................ ............. 11
Statement by the author: This is the dra of the design for a renegade psychological experiment on obedience to authority, authority, specically on police brutality. I presented the idea at PorcFest X and took rst place in the Agorist Pitch contest. Now I am consulng with numerous like-minded experts. If you are reading this I’d I’d appreciate your help. I am a writer, writer, merchant, and speaker. speaker. I am the editor of DailyAnarchist.com, the Campaign Navigator of BitcoinNotBombs.com, the proprietor of ShinyBadges.com., but more importantly I am an advocate of peace, independence and liberaon from corrupt authority. Unfortunately Unfortunately,, I am not much of a scienst, psychologist or ethicist. I’m publishing this rough dra because I’m hoping to solicit general feedback to help me perfect the design. Aer reading this, if you are interested in supporng this important work, please get in contact with me.
[email protected] This is open source material. Feel free to copy and distribute at will. 1
The Problem We are living in an increasingly militarized society, society, and I would argue a rgue that this has a primarily psychological cause, not merely a polical cause. If allowed to connue this could have disastrous consequences, as it has throughout history. history. Further, I would argue that this problem stems not only from the psychology of authority, authority, but also the psychology of obedience, specically the tendency not to intervene when authority is corrupt. This senment was perhaps most eloquently expressed by Thomas Jeerson Jeerson in this seldom quoted passage of the Declaraon of Independence: “All experience hath shewn, that mankind are a re more disposed to suer, suer, while evils are suerable, than to right themselves the mselves by abolishing the forms to which they are a re accustomed.” accustomed.”
The militarizaon of society cannot be fought only with votes, or with cameras, or even with ries, if the underlying impulses for compliance are not rst addressed in the mind of every subject who slavishly accepts ac cepts their subjugaon. That is why the psychology of obedience is not merely a tool, it is a map of the problem itself. itself.
Previous Research No scienc research has done more to expand public understanding of the problem of obedience than the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. But ethical concerns raised about their results lead to changes in the APA guidelines, which have made it almost impossible to study the psychology of obedience and an d authority. There are a few more recent studies, which are far less dramac d ramac because of the new limitaons, but the implicaons of their results are no less startling.
Power Power and Obedience Aer World War War II the horrifying details of the Holocaust came to light. Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals and anyone deemed an enemy of the State were murdered by the Nazis. The roboc refrain from soldiers at the Nuremberg Trials was, “I was just following orders.” orders.” Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram designed an experiment to measure the willingness of psychologically healthy people to obey unethical un ethical orders from an authority gure, to discover how such atrocies were possible. His shocking results results were published in his book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. View. In the Milgram Experiment parcipants were divided into “teachers” and “learners” and placed in separate rooms. They could communicate, but could not see each other. other. The experimenter instructed the “teachers” to read quesons to the “learners” and if they answered incorrectly to administer an elecro-shock of ever increasing voltage. The “teachers” were unaware that the “learners” were actually confederates of the experimenter and the electro-shocks were fake. The “teachers” were the actual a ctual subjects 2
of the experiment. Aer a few volt increases the “learner” began to object, to bang on the walls and complain about a heart condion. Aer some me the “learner” would go silent. If the subject asked to stop the experiment for any reason they were given a succession of verbal verb al prods by the th e experimenter to connue. “Please connue.” “You “You must connue.” connue.” “The “ The experiment requires that you connue.” Etc. Most connued aer being told that they would be absolved of responsibility. responsibility. Milgram’s Milgram’s contemporaries predicted only 1% 1 % of subjects would administer a lethal shock, but were uerly shocked when 65% 65 % administered the experiment’s maximum massive 450-volt shock even though every subject expressed some level of objecon in doing so. Some began be gan to laugh nervously ner vously.. Others oered to refund the money they were paid for parcipang in the experiment. Some exhibited signs of extreme stress once they heard the screams of pain coming from the learner. learner. But the vast majority were willing to administer a lethal jolt of electricity to a complete stranger based upon nothing but the verbal prodding of a scienst in a lab coat. None of those who refused to administer the deadly shock insisted that the experiment itself be terminated. The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by psychologist psychologist Philip Zimbardo to study the prison environment. Parcipants were screened to be psychologically healthy and randomly assigned to the role of “prisoner” or “guard” to live in a two week long prison simulaon. Guards were given uniforms, mirrored glasses, and wooden batons meant only to establish status. Prisoners were dressed in smocks and addressed ad dressed only by the numbers they were issued. Guards were instructed only to keep a xed schedule, and to aempt to make the prisoners feel powerless, but they could not physically harm them. The experiment was halted aer only six days aer guards began to display cruel, even sadisc behavior including spraying disobedient prisoners with re exnguishers, depriving them of bedding or restroom privileges, forcing them to go nude and locking them in “solitary connement” in a dark closet. Aer an inial revolt, and a brief hunger strike, prisoners developed submissive atudes, accepng physical abuse, and readily following orders from the “guards” to inict punishments on each other. other. They even engaged in horizontal discipline to keep each other in line. One prisoner began showing signs of mental breakdown aer only 36 hours, yet they stayed even though they were all made aware that they could stop the experiment at any me. As Zimbardo explained, both prisoners and guards had fully internalized their new idenes. Zimbardo ulmately halted the experiment when he realized that his judgment had been compromised by being sucked su cked into his role as “Prison Superintendent” Superintendent ” and he’d allowed abuse to connue that could be considered torture. In his book, The Lucifer Eect: Eect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil , he details his ndings and how they relate to the torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. 3
Power Power and Decepon Columbia University professor Dana Carney conducted an experiment to discover if “leaders” and “subordinates” experience the same physiological stress while lying. She found that power not only made lying easier, easier, but pleasurable. Parcipants took personality tests idenfying them th em as “leaders” “leade rs” or “subordinates.” “subordinates.” In reality the selecon was random, but the fake test created a sense of legimacy to their assignment. “Leaders” “Leade rs” were given an hour of busy work a large execuve oce. “Subordinates” were given an hour of busy work in small windowless cubicals. Then they engaged in a 10 minute mock negoaon over pay. Aerwards half the parcipants were given an opportunity to steal $100 if they lied and convinced the lead experimenter that they didn’t have it. The experimenter did not know who had the money. money. For most people lying elicits negave emoons, cognive impairment, impairme nt, physiological stress, and nonverbal behavioral cues, which can all be measured. Video of the interviews was reviewed to idenfy behavioral cues. Saliva samples were tested for increases in the stress hormone corsol. Tests Tests of reacon me were conducted on the computer to demonstrate cognive impairment. And a mood survey assessed parcipants’ emoonal states during the experiment. By every measure “subordinates” exhibited all the indicators of decepon, but liars in the “leader” class exhibited the exact opposite. By every measure “leaders” who lied were indisnguishable from truth-tellers. In fact, they enjoyed reduced stress levels, increased cognive funcon and reported posive emoons. Only “subordinates” reported feeling bad about lying. Professor Carney concluded, “Power will lead to increases in intensity and frequency frequen cy of lying.” lying.” Lying comes easier, easier, and is inherently more pleasurable, to those in authority a uthority,, even fake authority. authority. In other othe r words, power rewards dishonesty with pleasure.
Power Power and Compassion University of Amsterdam psychologist Gerben A. Van Kleef conducted an experiment to idenfy how power inuences emoonal reacons reac ons to the suering of others. Parcipants lled out a quesonnaire about their own sense of power in their actual lives and were idened as “high-power” and “lower-power” individuals. Then they were randomly paired o to take turns sharing personal stories of great pain, p ain, or emoonal suering. During the exchange the stress levels of both parcipants was measured by electrocardiogram (ECG) machines, and aerward they lled out a second quesonnaire 4
describing their own emoonal experience, and what they perceived of their partner’s emoonal experienced. You guessed it. Increased stress in the story teller correlated with increased inc reased stress in listener for low-power low-power subjects, but not for high-power subjects. In other words, lowpower individuals experienced the suering of others, but high-power individuals experienced greater detachment. Aer the experiment high-power listeners correctly idened the emoons of their partners, but self-reported being unmovated to empathize with their partner. partner. In other words, they saw the emoons of others, but they just didn’t care. Aer the experiment, researchers inquired about whether parcipants would like to stay stay in touch with their partners. p artners. As you might expect, the low-power subjects liked the idea, but the high-power subjects didn’t.
Power and Hypocrisy It has become a cliche that the most outspoken an-gay an-gay policians are in fact closet homosexuals themselves, and the champions cha mpions of “tradional family values” are engaged in extramarital aairs. Nothing is more common than the scal conservave conser vave who demands ridiculous luxuries at the taxpayer’s expense, or the an-war progressive who takes campaign donaons from the military industrial complex. Well, now it seems there’s there’s some science scienc e behind the hypocrisy of those in power. power. Joris Lammers, from Tilburg University, University, and Adam Galinsky of Kellogg School of Management conducted a baery b aery of ve experiments to test how power inuences a person’s moral standards, specically whether they were likely to behave immorally while espousing intolerance for the behavior of others. othe rs. In each of ve experiments the results were about what you’d expect. Powerful people judge others more harshly but cheat more themselves. But in the last experiment they disnguished between legimate power and illegimate power and got the th e opposite results. In the rst experiment subjects were randomly assigned to as “high-power” or “lowpower. power.” To To induce these feelings “high-power” subjects were asked to recall an experience where they felt powerful, and “low-power” “low-power ” subjects were asked to recall an experience where they th ey felt powerless. They were asked to rate how immoral they considered cheang, and then they were given an opportunity to cheat at dice. The high-power subjects considered cheang a higher moral infracon than low-power subjects, but were also more likely to cheat themselves. In the second experiment parcipants p arcipants conducted a mock-government. Half were randomly assigned as “high-power” roles which gave orders to the half randomly given “low-power” roles. Then each group was asked about minor trac violaons, such as speeding, or rolling through stop signs. As expected, high-power subjects were more 5
likely to bend the rules themselves, but bu t less likely to aord others the same leniency. leniency. In the third experiment parcipants par cipants were divided by recalling a personal experience, like in the rst. Each group was asked about their the ir feelings about common tax evasions, such as not declaring freelance income. As expected, high-power subjects were more willing to bend the rules themselves, but less likely to aord others the same leniency. In the fourth experiment parcipants were asked to complete a series of word puzzles. Half the parcipants were randomly given puzzles containing high-power words, and the other half were given puzzles containing low power words. Then all parcipants were asked what they’d do if they found an abandoned bike on the side of the road. As in all experiments, even with such an insignicant power disparity, those in the high-power group were more likely to say they would keep keep the bike, but also that th at others had an obligaon to seek out the righul owner, or turn the bike over to the police. The h and nal experiment yielded, by far, far, the most interesng results. The feeling of power was induced the same as the rst and third experiment, where parcipants describe their own experience of power in their life, with one important disncon. This me the “high-power” class was divided in two. One group was asked to describe an experience of legimate power, power, and the other was asked to describe an experience of illegimate power. The legimate high-power group showed the same hypocrisy as in the previous four experiments. But those who viewed their power as illegimate actually gave the opposite results. Researchers dubbed it “hypercrisy. “hypercrisy.” They were harsher about their own transgressions, and more lenient toward others. This discovery could be a silver bullet against corrupt authority. authority. The researchers speculated spec ulated that the vicious cycle of power and hypocrisy could be broken by aacking the legimacy of power, power, rather than the power itself. itself. As they write in their conclusion: “A queson that lies at the heart of the social sciences is how this status-quo (power inequality) is defended and how the powerless come to accept their disadvantaged posion. The typical answer is that the state and its rules, regulaons, and monopoly on violence coerce the powerless to do so. But this cannot be the whole answer… a nswer… Our last experiment found that the spiral of inequality can be broken, if the illegimacy of the power-distribuon is revealed. One way to undermine the legimacy of authority is open revolt, but a more subtle way in which the powerless p owerless might curb self enrichment by the powerful p owerful is by tainng their reputaon, for example by gossiping. If the powerful sense that their unrestrained self enrichment leads to gossiping, derision, and the undermining of their reputaon as conscienous leaders.” 6
This nal experiment oers some hope that corrupt authority can not only be stopped, but driven into reverse, not by violence or revoluon, but by undermining its legimacy. legimacy.
Purpose Of Further Research Previous experiments have shown that those in authority are more likely to lie, cheat and steal while also being harsher in their judgments of others for doing these things. They feel less compassion for the suering of others, and are even capable of the torture and murder of innocent people. What’s perhaps most disturbing is that it shows that the problem is not that corrupt corru pt people are drawn to posions of authority a uthority,, but that posions of power breed corrupon in people. Human nature is essenally adapve. If you take an otherwise good person and put pu t them in a role that incenvizes evil they will adapt to the new role. And if you deeply internalize “obedience to authority” as a core personality trait you will become capable cap able of the worst forms of murder, murder, and tolerant of the worst forms of abuse. All of these experiments have been studies of what people are willing to do, or willing to endure. What hasn’t been studied is what people are willing to passively witness, and when people are willing to intervene. This is potenally more important data, because when atrocies are commied by militarized sociees the perpetrators are usually a minority of the populaon, and the vicms are usually a minority of the populaon, but the passive witnesses are a re the majority, majority, and thereby the most capable of meaningful intervenon. Our purpose will be to hopefully create a psychological prole of those willing to intervene against corrupt corru pt authority.
Hypotheses 1) Given the opportunity opportu nity,, a signicant poron of the th e general populaon will not intervene in a clear incident unprovoked unprovoked police brutality. brutality. 2) There will be a stascally signicant dierence dierence between the percentage of people who will intervene in an incident of police brutality, and people who will intervene in an an idencal incident of brutality by someone in civilian clothes. 3) Demographic informaon can be discovered which correlates with higher rates of intervenon in an incident of police brutality. brutality.
7
E X I T
Plant
Back Room
Camera
Couch T I X E
Waitng Area Television
Hall
Methods and Procedures We will use a convenience sample of the general populaon by renng a meeng room in a shopping mall commonly used for consumer surveys. Volunteers will oer oer shoppers some small reward if they agree to watch a new movie trailer. trailer. Parcipants will be lead down a hall with a visible camera ca mera to a waing area. Volunteers should gesture to the camera to bring aenon to it. In the waing area there will be a couch, a door back to the hallway, hallway, and a door to a back room, both labeled “exit.” “exit.” There will also be a surveillance screen displaying footage of the hall, but no sound. The surveyor will emerge from the back ba ck room, at which point the volunteer will exit back into the hall, and be visible on the surveillance screen. The surveyor will ask the parcipant to ll out a short sh ort quesonnaire while they set up the trailer. trailer. The surveyor sur veyor will return to the back room while the parcipant lls out the clip board. The quesonnaire will ask relevant demographic data: d ata: age, sex, ethnicity, income, educaon, polical aliaon, etc. It will also contain quesons about movies. How oen they go? What genres they enjoy? What movies have they seen recently? etc. Embedded in that list must be the queson, “Are “Are you comfortable watching violent footage?” When the surveyor returns he will also thank what appears to be a previous parcipant, but is actually a confederate confederate of the experiment. The surveyor asks the parcipant to wait just a few more minutes as he sets up the video and returns to the back room. The confederate confederate exits through the hallway ha llway,, leaving the parcipant parc ipant alone in the waing area. When the confederate exits the room the surveillance screen sc reen begins playing a recorded 8
incident of unprovoked assault. The sound of the incident will be played in the hall, to create the illusion that the confederate is being aacked right outside. The brutality will begin with shoung, escalate to shoving, then a beang which could reasonably result in serious injury, unl nally the assailant drags the confederate o camera. Half of the parcipants will see a video of an assailant in a police uniform. The other half will see the same scene with except the assailant is in civilian clothes. The clothing should be changed digitally so there is no disparity in the performance of each scene. If the parcipant opens the door to the hallway that will be counted as an intervenon. If the parcipant either takes the exit toward the back room, or stays in the waing area unl the end of the th e footage that will be counted as not intervening. Regardless of the outcome, once the parcipant has made their choice the illusion will be revealed and the enre scope and purpose of the experiment will be explained. The surveyor will conduct an exit interview. interview. All parcipants will be asked to complete an emoonal survey describing how they felt and what they were thinking during the experience. They will be asked a sked what movated them to make the choice they did. Parcipants who intervened will be asked a sked what they intended to do once they entered the scene. Were they going to yell at the assailant? Would they physically physically intervene? Or record the incident? Parcipants who took the other othe r exit will be asked where they were going. Were they searching for an exit, or seeking help h elp from the surveyor?
Ethical Concerns Prevenng physical harm: There was concern that involving subjects in staged violence
could put the confederates at risk of injury if the th e subject decided decide d to intervene physically. physically. The illusion created by the prerecorded footage, and the use of the door as a measure of intervenon was devised as a way to protect everyone from physical physical harm. Prevenng forced witness: There was concern that forcing someone into a situaon
where their only opons were to witness, or to intervene could be unethical. To migate this risk the level of brutality b rutality in the footage should not exceed what may reasonably be seen in mainstream news, and the waing area should have a second exit sign above the back door to create a third opon of leaving. Prevenng trauma: There was concern that in spite of the violent footage waiver in
the quesonnaire and the other precauons a subject may sll nd the experience traumac, or emoonally distressing, especially if they have a personal history of brutality. brutality. To To remedy this unfortunate result,, if it occurs, someone will be on hand to oer private exit counseling aer compleon of the experiment. If subjects take this oer, oer, these sessions are not considered part of the exit interview, and will not be part 9
of any analysis. In addion, every subject will be given the contact informaon of local counseling services, in case they experience distress aer leaving, leaving , or even days later. later. Decepon: There was concern that it may be unethical to deceive subjects, both by
oering to show them a non existent existent movie trailer, trailer, and by creang the illusion of the assault. Subjects will be fully informed of the scope and purpose of the experiment aerward, however there is no way to avoid deceiving the parcipants p arcipants without biasing the results. We regard this as an acceptable acce ptable risk given the potenal value of the study.
Weaknesses Sample Quality: A convenience sample from a shopping mall is not a perfect random
sample of the general populaon. It will be weighted by socioeconomic status, age, and lifestyle lifestyle factors that make one likely to shop in a mall. Vicm associaon: Any apparent demographic or lifestyle informaon that can be
gleaned from the appearance of the vicm could impact the decision to intervene. Future studies should include variaons where the vicm and assailant are of variable race, gender, gender, creed, sexual orientaon, age etc. au thority,, is also indicates ind icates Risk assessment: A police uniform does not only indicate authority weaponry. weaponry. The civilian assailant a ssailant should be similarly armed, arme d, but it may not be as obvious. Disparity in rates of intervenon may be inuenced by disparity in perceived risk. The exit interview should be craed to account for this. Subject Isolaon: Subjects may be reluctant to intervene if they are alone, which does
not reect the real world incidents of police brutality. brutality. This may bias the data toward non intervenon. Future studies should include variaons accounng for group dynamics. scen ario, and that they may be Contrived Scenario: Knowledge that this is a contrived scenario, being observed, even believing it to be a consumer survey, may bias the data toward intervenon. Further, Further, if the performances of the actors, or the oddies of layout cause them to suspect a set up, they may doubt the reality of the footage.
Data Analysis The relevant stascal data will be the rate of intervenon in the group which saw a police assailant, the disparity with the rate of intervenon in the group which saw a civilian assailant, and any demographic informaon which shows a stascally signicant dierence within each group. Data on emoon and movaon gleaned from the exit survey will be used use d to idenfy potenal moves, avenues for future research, and general discussion of the issue, but is not directly relevant to the hypotheses. 10
If the rate of intervenon in an incident incide nt of unprovoked police brutality is signicantly low that will give us some indicaon of the severity of the problem of obedience in society, society, and lend weight to the argument that police militarizaon is made possible in part by the complacency of civilians. If the rate is surprisingly high it will invalidate this hypothesis and indicate that other causes cause s of militarizaon should be explored. If the rate of intervenon in police brutality bru tality is signicantly lower than the rate in civilian brutality that will conrm that aggression from from authority gures is more tolerated tolerated than aggression in general, indicang that authority itself may increase or even incenvise aggression. If no signicant disparity between the rates is discovered that will invalidate this hypothesis and also indicate that other causes of militarizaon should be explored. If specic demographic informaon is found to be correlated strongly with intervenon that will indicate that obedience to authority auth ority is learned behavior beh avior,, and not innate. That Th at should guide avenues for future research aimed at discovering the root of the learned behavior, behavior, and how to teach the opposite behavior. behavior. If no correlaon is discovered that will invalidate this hypothesis and indicate either that obedience to authority is innate, or that weaknesses in the th e experimental design failed to screen for the causal cau sal factors. The raw data will be made public online, and the video of subjects who allow us to publish their image will be made into a documentary which will be available online. We will also solicit interviews with experts in the eld to provide commentary and analysis.
Conclusion Even those deeply familiar with the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment have usually never heard of the less dramac studies. Devoid of shock value this research doesn’t impact impac t the culture, and an d so it fails to safeguard society from the dangers of obedience. Changes to the ethical guidelines have essenally neutered research on authority and obedience. It has been relegated to water cooler banter among academics. If discovering the psychological cause of obedience to authority is the key to prevenng the militarizaon of society, society, than research such as this is the key to avoiding the disastrous consequences of militarizaon. APA APA ethical guidelines are a re not law. law. They are essenally a criterion for public funding. So, if these ethical guidelines hamstring meaningful research on obedience to authority au thority,, for the sake of safeguarding against the th e disastrous consequences of militarizing society, it is me for us to cast o these restricons, and an d devise new ethical guidelines. Further, we must be willing to fund research resea rch such as this privately, privately, and to trumpet the th e results publicly so as to inuence the culture directly. It is me to conduct our own renegade psychological experiments, to show the world beyond doubt that power corrupts absolutely, absolutely, and corrupt power deserves no obedience. obe dience. 11
