The Milgram Experiment is one of the most famous - or infamous - in the history of social psychology. In essence it shows how easily people can be persuaded to perform reprehensible acts if instructed to do so by an authority figure: volunteers administered what they believed to be a painful and potentially fatal electric shock to another “volunteer” simply because a man in a white coat told them to do so.

Of course that’s just an experiment from the 1960s. We’re enlightened, self-aware 21st century individuals. We wouldn’t do anything like that.

Would we?

Obviously the Milgram Experiment is an extreme example, however there are many ways in which we potentially allow authority to override our usual ethical standards.

The most common of these is the “jobsworth” who insists on following the rule book to the letter even when clearly inappropriate. By doing so this person is protecting their own back, but often at the expense of the other person. They’re inflicting pain on someone else because the rules tell them to do so. That’s Milgram in a nutshell.

Even if we don’t cause pain to others in the name of authority we might punish ourselves. Have you ever felt bad when doing something that you know is right yet is against some silly rule? Have you ever gone against your true self as a result of peer pressure? Have you ever felt your inability to live life to the full hampered by some outdated mores you absorbed as a child?

Do you feel inadequate because you don’t look and dress the same way as the celebrities on TV that you’ve subconsciously adopted as authority figures?

Small scale versions of Milgram’s experiment are playing themselves out around us all day every day. Each of us is on both the giving and receiving end of the electric shock - and this time the pain is for real.

Now I’m not saying that the rule book should be thrown out of the window, of course not. Most rules make sense most of the time.

But not always. All authority should be questioned rather than obeyed mindlessly.

Photo copyright © angelika fischer / iStockphoto

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