Obedience

Obedience can be extremely functional—particularly in emergencies and high-stress crisis situations (e.g., a battle, a police raid, a space shuttle, a hospital emergency room). Under these circumstances, it really helps to have someone in authority take the lead and issue commands that are unquestioningly obeyed. Consider what might happen in a battle if the troops decided to mull over every command given by their commander before deciding whether or not to obey. For this reason, obedience is highly valued in groups that need to make decisions and take action very swiftly under life-or-death conditions. However, obedience is also enshrined in more enduring groups that expect members to simply do as they are told and to unquestioningly follow specific orders and more general rules and principles. Such groups are often thought of as being orthodox and as having a strong leadership structure based on power—for example, the military in general, many religions, cults, gangs, and some societies.

Although obedience can be valuable, it can also be destructive if the commands that one is obeying specify actions that have harmful consequences. The classic example of this is the plea “I was only obeying orders,” which has repeatedly been made by people accused of crimes against humanity. The key question is, what is the psychology of blind obedience that causes people to simply obey a leader irrespective of what the orders ask one to do?

This entry focuses primarily on the social psychology of blind and destructive obedience to outline the conditions that enhance or weaken obedience that has harmful consequences. Much of what is known about obedience rests on the classic and controversial research of Stanley Milgram during the 1960s.