72. People Obey Authority Figures

In the early 1960s, Stanley Milgram (1963) performed experiments on the psychology of obedience. Participants in the study thought they were engaged in an experiment on learning and punishments. They were asked to administer shocks to someone in another room if that person answered questions incorrectly. In fact, the person in the other room was part of the experiment and wasn’t receiving shocks at all.

Every time the “learner” answered a question incorrectly, the participants were asked to increase the level of shock voltage. The participants couldn’t see the learner, but they could hear them making noise every time they received a shock. As the voltage was increased, the learner made more and more noise, eventually shouting things like “Stop! Please stop!” Eventually, at the highest voltage levels, the learner was silent, as though they had passed out or were unconscious. Figure 72.1 is a photo of the shock machine used in the Milgram study.

Image

Figure 72.1. The Milgram experiment shock machine

Milgram was trying to understand how far people would go against their own moral code to inflict pain on another person if an authority figure told them they had to.

Before the experiments started, Milgram asked colleagues, grad students, and psychology majors at Yale (where the study was conducted) to estimate how many people would increase the voltage the maximum amount (30 steps greater than where it started) if an authority figure in a lab coat told them to do so. The estimate was 1 to 2 percent. In the experiment, however, two-thirds of the subjects went to the maximum, even with the (pretend) subject in the other room shouting “Please stop!”

Image The ethics of psychology experiments

Milgram’s experiments set off a firestorm about the ethics of working with research participants. Years later, some of the participants in the Milgram studies reported long-term psychological damage (what kind of person were they to administer shocks to people?). Since then, psychology experiments in most countries have had to adhere to guidelines to prevent damage to the participants.

Image More information about the Milgram studies

For more information and to watch some video clips from the original Milgram studies, go to http://www.mediasales.psu.edu/

The Milgram study has been replicated. The BBC recorded a video of one of the updated studies, which you can watch on YouTube at http://youtu.be/BcvSNg0HZwk

Being the Presenter Gives You Automatic Authority

What you may not realize is that being the presenter gives you automatic authority. Through an inherent social reaction to a leader, as well as through learned behaviors, people have an automatic initial reaction to obey someone who is in authority. When you walk in front of the room, whether in a small meeting room or a large auditorium, the assumption is that you are the leader and you are in charge. That authority can be quickly diminished or lost, based on what you do, but it is yours at the very beginning. In the rest of this chapter you will learn what you might unconsciously do that diminishes your authority, as well as many things you can do to keep and enhance your natural authority.

Takeaways

• Do everything that you can to keep the automatic authority that being the presenter gives you. If you can grab and maintain the leadership position of authority during your presentation, your audience will pay more attention and be more persuaded by what you are saying.

• Make a list of the things in this chapter that you can improve upon to earn and keep your authority when you are presenting.

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