I work in a Healthcare Provider Institution (IPS) where we evaluate the physical and mental fitness of novice drivers, who need to renew their driving license or upgrade..
There is the possibility of certifying a user with any sensory, physical, or cognitive impairment or disability. The health professional, who examines the client, receives the precept of granting the driving license to an unfit subject - because of the dishonest influence of an investor partner, legal representative or another person with rights in the company.
The health worker feels attacked by an order that violates ethics and statutes. The challenge of the mandate arises as a personal protest; Nevertheless, the figure with authority greatly influences: the requirement must be met.
In relation to the above, the psychologist Stanley milgram conducted an experiment, in the 1960s, on the obedience to authority and revealed that, even if we disagree, we submit to power. The research was conducted with more than 700 Americans from various occupations. They were informed that they would participate in a study to demonstrate the influence of punishment on learning, obvious it was not true.
The dynamics of the study is as follows: an instructor would teach a learner (accomplice to the experiment) a series of words to memorize. If the student did not mark the correct answers on his board, the teacher provided a progressive (fictitious) electric shock with each blunder..
Meanwhile, an observer (who represented the authority figure) supervised the teacher's homework and prompted him to continue with the shocks. The results were revealing, so much so that the scientific community and the general public were divided into detractors and supporters.
Stanley Milgram was the son of European Jewish immigrants, so much so that the Holocaust influenced the study's thesis on obedience to authority. The reasoning was to find out how it was possible that civilized citizens participated in barbarism and continued their lives without regrets.
However, the psychologist hoped that people could be more honest and less malicious. He hypothesized that disobedience would be higher in study participants, but it was not. For this reason, he asked psychiatrists and psychologists to predict the results of the experiment: they agreed that the majority of subjects would give up and only a part would continue until the end. How it was discovered, obedience was the norm among the sample; instead, disobedience represented the exception.
The investigation revealed the following: We willingly obey authority; therefore, there is no submission.
An obedient person relegates his self-sufficiency to enter a social structure. The subject strives to be competent to the requirements of sovereignty; consequently, he is submissive if he believes in the power of the other.
But, when an arbitrary order arises, the individual resolves to serve and strip himself of all responsibility - many times we have heard someone say that he carried out an order because it was sent to him, but not because of his free will. Also, ideology favors subordination because it is easier to get approval of the ordinance. Stanley called this phenomenon: the agentic state.
The context develops complex social interactions that favor obedience; that is, the human being, as a social subject, has been more submissive for ideological reasons than individual ones. This is allowed because we assume roles within a group. Let's go back to the example from the beginning in the review. The health professional respects the hierarchy and represents his role as an employee. When he signs the contract, he implicitly assumes the obligation to obey his superiors; otherwise, it is dispensable for the company: the employee prefers to abide by the rules and avoid discomfort.
So far we can infer that we are vulnerable to an authority, but how do we defend ourselves from despotism?? Hannah Arendt (2003) proposed individual reflection as a means of protection against an adverse system.
It is about preserving personal judgment when an idea seems foolish to us. Although it is not easy to confront an entrenched ideology - Solomon Asch, Robert Rosenthal, Philip Zimbardo, among other social scientists, have demonstrated the power of collective influence on individual behavior-, everyone should strive to avoid making decisions shaken by the authoritarian system.
Thinking the ideas under a calm state of mind, reflecting on the benefit that obedience and some rebellion would bring to the authority, could help us to prevent the abuse of the controlling entity.
In conclusion, from the experiment we rescued the results on one aspect of the human condition: we did not act maliciously on purpose, but because of the influence of the situation. In addition, the replicas, in different parts of the world, corroborate the hypothesis. The study has been considered artificial and biased because the interactions predispose the repetition of the data in each implementation.
However, because we underestimate the context, it is easy for us to judge it. From an ethical point of view, the possible damages generated in the experimental subjects were ignored, even if the post-experimental follow-up demonstrated the opposite. For everything else, for or against, the results of careful experimentation condense the reflections on our role as obedient people..
References
Arendt, H. (2003). Eichmann in Jerusalem. Barcelona, Spain: Editorial Lumen S.A.
Milgram, Stanley. (1980). Obedience to authority. A point of view experimental. Bilbao, Spain: EDITORIAL DESCLEE DE BROUWER, S. A.
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