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65-584: Humans have been shown to be obedient in the presence of perceived legitimate authority figures, as shown by the Milgram experiment in the 1960s, which was carried out by Stanley Milgram to find out how the Nazis managed to get ordinary people to take part in the mass murders of the Holocaust . The experiment showed that obedience to authority was the norm, not the exception. Regarding obedience, Milgram said that "Obedience

130-608: A Free King and His Natural Subjects which advocated his right to rule on the basis of the concept of the divine right of kings , a theological concept that has a basis in multiple religions, but in this case, Christianity, tracing this right to the apostolic succession . Sovereign kings and queens in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms are considered the foundations of judicial, legislative and executive authority. The foundation of American legitimate authority rests on

195-425: A belief that the experiment served a desirable end, the sequential nature of the action, and anxiety. Another explanation of Milgram's results invokes belief perseverance as the underlying cause. What "people cannot be counted on is to realize that a seemingly benevolent authority is in fact malevolent, even when they are faced with overwhelming evidence which suggests that this authority is indeed malevolent. Hence,

260-511: A heritable factor. Authority and its attributes have been identified as of particular relevance to children as they regard their parents and teachers. The three attributes of authority have been described as status , specialist skills or knowledge , and social position . Children consider the type of command, the characteristics of the authority figure, and the social context when making authority conclusions. Although children regard these three types of authority attributes, they first assess

325-516: A long duration, not the micro social psychological study of children per se. There is nothing in Weber's published work in the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe that directly deals with children's perceptions in "formations" with traditional legitimate authority, prior to the emergence of modern capitalism . Hofstede Insights details "Power Distance" as: "Power distance is defined as the extent to which

390-399: A mildly painful electric shock to another participant (the "victim") in exchange for €0.05. In a study conducted in 2020, fMRI results indicated that seeing the shock delivered to the victim triggered activations in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the anterior insula (AI), key brain regions associated with empathy. However, such activations were lower in the coerced condition compared to

455-421: A nation-state. An argument for political anarchy is made by Michael Huemer in his book The Problem of Political Authority . On the other side, one of the main arguments for the legitimacy of the state is some form of the social contract theory developed by Thomas Hobbes in his 1668 book, Leviathan , or by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his political writings on the social contract . In sociology , authority

520-545: A perceived authority figure, about two-thirds of the participants were willing to administer the highest level of shock to the learner. This result was surprising to Milgram because he thought that "subjects have learned from childhood that it is a fundamental breach of moral conduct to hurt another person against his will". Milgram attempted to explain how ordinary people were capable of performing potentially lethal acts against other human beings by suggesting that participants may have entered into an agentic state, where they allowed

585-432: A political concept. Weber defined domination (authority) as the chance of commands being obeyed by a specifiable group of people. Legitimate authority is that which is recognized as legitimate and justified by both the ruler and the ruled. Legitimated rule results in what Weber called the monopoly over the use of coercive violence in a given territory. In the modern world, such authority is typically delegated to police and

650-505: A similar nesting of authority. His legitimacy must be acknowledged, not just by citizens, but by those who control other valued resources: his immediate staff, his cabinet, military leaders and in the long run, the administration and political apparatus of the entire society. Authority can be created expressly when public entities act publicly, using the same means to communicate the grant of authority to their agents that they use to communicate this to third parties, apparent authority describes

715-419: A study of the effects of punishment on learning. In reality, the experiment focuses on people's willingness to obey malevolent authority. Each subject served as a teacher of associations between arbitrary pairs of words. After meeting the "teacher" at the beginning of the experiment, the "learner" (an accomplice of the experimenter) sat in another room and could be heard, but not seen. Teachers were told to give

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780-506: A tax authority in the lab versus at home found that participants were much more likely to pay participation tax when confronted in the lab. This finding implies that even outside of experimental settings, people will forgo potential financial gain to obey authority. Another study involving political science measured public opinion before and after a Supreme Court case debating whether or not states can legalize physician assisted suicide. They found that participants' tendency to obey authorities

845-418: Is an authority. The term "authority" has many nuances and distinctions within various academic fields ranging from sociology to political science . In the exercise of governance , the terms authority and power are inaccurate synonyms. The term authority identifies the political legitimacy , which grants and justifies rulers' right to exercise the power of government; and the term power identifies

910-497: Is as basic an element in the structure of social life as one can point to. Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living, and it is only the man dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond, through defiance or submission, to the commands of others." A similar conclusion was reached in the Stanford prison experiment . Although other fields have studied obedience, social psychology has been primarily responsible for

975-438: Is broadly or provisionally understood as a claim to political authority that is legitimated . Historical applications of authority in political terms include the formation of the city-state of Geneva , and experimental treatises involving the topic of authority in relation to education include Emile, or On Education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau . As David Laitin defines, authority is a key concept to be defined in determining

1040-403: Is the legitimate or socially approved power which one person or a group possesses and practices over another. The element of legitimacy is vital to the notion of authority and is the main means by which authority is distinguished from the more general concept of power . Power can be exerted by the use of force or violence . Authority, by contrast, depends on the acceptance by subordinates of

1105-631: The Catholic Church , obedience is seen as one of the evangelical counsels , "undertaken in a spirit of faith and love in the following of Christ ". Learning to obey adult rules is a major part of the socialization process in childhood, and many techniques are used by adults to modify the behavior of children. Additionally, extensive training is given in armies to make soldiers capable of obeying orders in situations where an untrained person would not be willing to follow orders. Soldiers are initially ordered to do seemingly trivial things, such as picking up

1170-864: The consent of the governed . This understanding of political authority and the exercise of political powers in the American context traces back to the writings of the Founding Fathers , including the arguments put forward in The Federalist Papers by James Madison , Alexander Hamilton and the first chief justice of the United States John Jay , and was referenced in the unanimous United States Declaration of Independence : We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal , that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and

1235-403: The "experimenter" was a medical doctor and thereby limit the implications of his findings to the power of physician authority. Despite the fact that prestige is often thought of as a separate factor, it is, in fact, merely a subset of power as a factor. Thus, the prestige conveyed by a Yale professor in a laboratory coat is only a manifestation of the experience and status associated with it and/or

1300-416: The "learner" electric shocks of increasing severity for each wrong answer. If subjects questioned the procedure, the "researcher" (again, an accomplice of Milgram) would encourage them to continue. Subjects were told to ignore the agonized screams of the learner, his desire to be untied and stop the experiment, and his pleas that his life was at risk and that he suffered from a heart condition. The experiment,

1365-492: The "researcher" insisted, had to go on. The dependent variable in this experiment was the voltage amount of shocks administered. The other classical study on obedience was conducted at Stanford University during the 1970s. Phillip Zimbardo was the main psychologist responsible for the experiment. In the Stanford Prison Experiment , college age students were put into a pseudo prison environment in order to study

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1430-533: The 16th president of the United States Abraham Lincoln would reiterate this fundamental source of legitimacy. "Our government rests in public opinion," Lincoln said in 1856. In his 1854 speech at Peoria, Illinois , Lincoln espoused the proposition “that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own," a principle existing "at the foundation of the sense of justice." This sense of personal ownership and stewardship

1495-471: The Milgram and Utrecht studies. They also found that participants would either stop the experiment at the first sign of the learner's pleas or would continue until the end of the experiment (called "the foot in the door scenario"). In addition to the above studies, additional research using participants from different cultures (including Spain, Australia, and Jordan) also found participants to be obedient. One of

1560-500: The ability to accomplish an authorized goal, either by compliance or by obedience ; hence, authority is the power to make decisions and the legitimacy to make such legal decisions and order their execution. Ancient understandings of authority trace back to Rome and draw later from Catholic ( Thomistic ) thought and other traditional understandings. In more modern terms, forms of authority include transitional authority (exhibited in, for example, Cambodia ), public authority in

1625-479: The actual experiment. Interviews for eligibility were conducted in an abandoned complex in Bridgeport , Connecticut . Despite the dilapidated state of the building, the researchers found that the presence of a Yale professor as stipulated in the advertisement affected the number of people who obeyed. This was not further researched to test obedience without a Yale professor because Milgram had not intentionally staged

1690-413: The advancement of research on obedience. It has been studied experimentally in several different ways. In one classical study, Stanley Milgram (as part of the Milgram experiment ) created a highly controversial yet often replicated study. Like many other experiments in psychology, Milgram's setup involved deception of the participants. In the experiment, subjects were told they were going to take part in

1755-534: The appointments, the budgeting process and has the right and capacity to review regulatory rules on a case-by-case basis. Since the time of the Reagan administration the president was informed with a cost–benefit analysis of the regulation. The creation of a regulatory agency requires an Act of Congress which specifies its jurisdiction, the related authority and delegated powers. Regulatory authorities can be qualified as independent agencies or executive branch agencies,

1820-409: The authority figure to take responsibility for their own actions. Another unanticipated discovery was the tension that the procedure caused. Subjects expressed signs of tension and emotional strain especially after administering the powerful shocks. 3 of the subjects had full-blown uncontrollable seizures, and on one occasion the experiment was stopped. Zimbardo obtained similar results as the guards in

1885-478: The child, and will believe themselves that they have a duty to obey them and internalize their values. While the study of children in modern capitalist societies does look at the psychological aspects of children's understanding of legitimate authority at the level of symbolic interaction it is also true that is an extrapolated assumption based on one interpretation of a broad Comparative Historical Sociological (CHS) analysis of legitimate authority in many societies over

1950-569: The court system. Weber divided legitimate authority into three types: A constitution may define the extent of the power of rational-legal authority. Modern societies depend on legal-rational authority. Government officials are the best example of this form of authority, which is prevalent all over the world. History has witnessed several social movements or revolutions against a system of traditional or legal-rational authority started by charismatic authorities. According to Weber, what distinguishes authority from coercion , force and power on

2015-525: The exercise of governmental authority. In the United States , for instance, there is a prevailing belief that the political system as instituted by the Founding Fathers should accord the populace as much freedom as reasonable; that government should limit its authority accordingly, known as limited government . Political anarchism is a philosophy which rejects the legitimacy of political authority and adherence to any form of sovereign rule or autonomy of

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2080-634: The experiment. In the modeled refusal condition, two confederates were used, where one confederate acted as the learner and the other was the teacher. The teacher stopped after going up to 90 volts, and the participant was asked to continue where the confederate left off. This methodology was considered more ethical because many of the adverse psychological effects seen in previous studies' participants occurred after moving past 150 volts. Additionally, since Milgram's study only used men, Burger tried to determine if there were differences between genders in his study and randomly assigned equal numbers of men and women to

2145-433: The experimental conditions. Using data from his previous study, Burger probed participant's thoughts about obedience. Participants' comments from the previous study were coded for the number of times they mentioned "personal responsibility and the learner's well being". The number of prods the participants used in the first experiment were also measured. Another study that used a partial replication of Milgram's work changed

2210-516: The experimental setting. In one of the Utrecht University studies on obedience, participants were instructed to make a confederate who was taking an employment test feel uncomfortable. Participants were told to make all of the instructed stress remarks to the confederate that ultimately made him fail in the experimental condition, but in the control condition they were not told to make stressful remarks. The dependent measurements were whether or not

2275-404: The form of popular power, and, in more administrative terms, bureaucratic or managerial techniques. In terms of bureaucratic governance, one limitation of the governmental agents of the executive branch, as outlined by George A. Krause, is that they are not as close to the popular will as elected representatives are. The claims of authority can extend to national or individual sovereignty , which

2340-440: The free-choice condition, consistent with participants' subjective perception of the victim’s pain. Activity in brain regions associated with the interpersonal feeling of guilt was also reduced when participants obeyed orders compared to acting freely. Other studies showed that the sense of agency, as measured through the implicit task of time perception, was reduced in the coerced compared to the free-choice condition, suggesting that

2405-536: The impacts of "social forces" on participants behavior. Unlike the Milgram study in which each participant underwent the same experimental conditions, here using random assignment half the participants were prison guards and the other half were prisoners. The experimental setting was made to physically resemble a prison while simultaneously inducing "a psychological state of imprisonment". The Milgram study found that most participants would obey orders even when obedience posed severe harm to others. With encouragement from

2470-448: The interviews to discover factors that affected obedience. A similar conclusion was reached in the Stanford prison experiment . In the actual experiment, prestige or the appearance of power was a direct factor in obedience—particularly the presence of men dressed in gray laboratory coats , which gave the impression of scholarship and achievement and was thought to be the main reason why people complied with administering what they thought

2535-451: The legitimacy of the authority figure in question using the nature of the commands they give. For example, a teacher that does not appear to have legitimate power from the child's perspective (perhaps because she or he cannot control the class well) will not be obeyed. Regarding parenting, authoritative parents who are warm and high in behavioral control but low in psychological control are more likely to be seen as having legitimate authority by

2600-623: The less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally", which can be interpreted as respect for authority. Generally, ex-communist countries, poor countries, and non-Protestant countries have the highest power distance (respect for inequality in the distribution of power). According to Hofstede Insights 2021 country comparison, all countries with power distance below 50 are Western Protestant democracies, except for Austria. Such studies are attempts to apply ideas found in Weber that he himself did not postulate directly and they assume

2665-579: The major assumptions of obedience research is that the effect is caused only by the experimental conditions, and Thomas Blass ' research contests this point, as in some cases participant factors involving personality could potentially influence the results. In one of Blass' reviews on obedience, he found that participant's personalities can impact how they respond to authority, as people that were high in authoritarian submission were more likely to obey. He replicated this finding in his own research, as in one of his experiments, he found that when watching portions of

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2730-421: The most influential texts. In European political philosophy , the jurisdiction of political authority, the location of sovereignty , the balancing of notions of freedom and authority, and the requirements of political obligations have been core questions from the time of Plato and Aristotle to the present. Most democratic societies are engaged in an ongoing discussion regarding the legitimate extent of

2795-459: The nation-state as a basic unit of "countries" rather than look at all of the various political economic "formations" in which Weber himself was most directly interested. The political authority in the British context can be traced to James VI and I of Scotland who wrote two political treatises called Basilikon Doron and The True Law of Free Monarchies: Or, The Reciprocal and Mutual Duty Between

2860-405: The one hand, and leadership , persuasion and influence on the other hand, is legitimacy. Superiors, he states, feel that they have a right to issue commands; subordinates perceive an obligation to obey (see also Milgram experiment ). Social scientists agree that authority is but one of several resources available to incumbents in formal positions. For example, a Head of State is dependent upon

2925-456: The original Milgram studies on film, participants placed less responsibility on those punishing the learner when they scored high on measures of authoritarianism. In addition to personality factors, participants who are resistant to obeying authority had high levels of social intelligence . Obedience can also be studied outside of the Milgram paradigm in fields such as economics or political science. One economics study that compared obedience to

2990-526: The participant made all of the stress remarks (measuring absolute obedience) and the number of stress remarks (relative obedience). Following the Utrecht studies, another study used the stress remarks method to see how long participants would obey authority. The dependent measures for this experiment were the number of stress remarks made and a separate measure of personality designed to measure individual differences. Neuroscience has only recently begun to approach

3055-544: The patient an overdose. Many traditional cultures regard obedience as a virtue; historically, societies have expected children to obey their elders (compare patriarchy or matriarchy ), slaves their owners, serfs their lords in feudal society , lords their king, and everyone God. Even long after slavery ended in the United States, the Black codes required black people to obey and submit to whites, on pain of lynching . Compare

3120-454: The psychology community. In a modern study, Jerry Burger replicated Milgram's method with a few alterations. Burger's method was identical to Milgram's except when the shocks reached 150 volts, participants decided whether or not they wanted to continue and then the experiment ended (base condition). To ensure the safety of the participants, Burger added a two-step screening process; this was to rule out any participants that may react negatively to

3185-593: The pursuit of Happiness .--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed , --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Later, speeches by

3250-415: The question of obedience, bringing novel but complementary perspectives on how obeying or issuing commands impacts brain functioning, fostering conditions for moral transgressions. The experimental protocol, inspired by Milgram, does not rely on deception and involves real behaviors. A participant assigned the role of agent must either freely decide or receive orders from the experimenter to deliver or withhold

3315-542: The range and role of political theory, science and inquiry. The relevance of a grounded understanding of authority includes the basic foundation and formation of political, civil and/or ecclesiastical institutions or representatives. In recent years, however, authority in political contexts has been challenged or questioned. There have been several contributions to the debate of political authority . Among others, Hannah Arendt , Carl Joachim Friedrich , Thomas Hobbes , Alexandre Kojève and Carl Schmitt have provided some of

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3380-490: The religious ideal of surrender and its importance in Islam (the word Islam can literally mean "surrender"). In some Christian weddings, obedience was formally included along with honor and love as part of the bride's (but not the bridegroom's) marriage vow . This came under attack with women's suffrage and the feminist movement. As of 2014 the inclusion of this promise to obey has become optional in some denominations . In

3445-408: The results of a field experiment on obedience in the nurse–physician relationship in its natural hospital setting. Nurses, unaware they were taking part in an experiment, were ordered by unknown doctors to administer dangerous doses of a (fictional) drug to their patients. Although several hospital rules disallowed administering the drug under the circumstances, 21 out of the 22 nurses would have given

3510-800: The right of those above them to give them orders or directives . The definition of authority in contemporary social science remains a matter of debate. Max Weber in his essay " Politics as a Vocation " (1919) divided legitimate authority into three types . Others, like Howard Bloom , suggest a parallel between authority and respect/reverence for ancestors . Max Weber , in his sociological and philosophical work, identified and distinguished three types of legitimate domination ( Herrschaft in German, which generally means 'domination' or 'rule'), that have sometimes been rendered in English translation as types of authority, because English-speakers do not see domination as

3575-653: The sense of agency diminishes when individuals obey orders compared to acting freely. These neuroscience studies highlight how obeying orders alters our natural aversion to hurting others. Burger's first study had results similar to the ones found in Milgram's previous study. The rates of obedience were very similar to those found in the Milgram study, showing that participants' tendency to obey has not declined over time. Additionally, Burger found that both genders exhibited similar behavior, suggesting that obedience will occur in participants independent of gender. In Burger's follow-up study, he found that participants that worried about

3640-446: The sergeant's hat off the floor, marching in just the right position, or marching and standing in formation. The orders gradually become more demanding, until an order to the soldiers to place themselves into the midst of gunfire gets an instinctively obedient response. When the Milgram experimenters were interviewing potential volunteers, the participant selection process itself revealed several factors that affected obedience, outside of

3705-496: The situation when a principal has placed restrictions on an agent that are not known to a third party, and restrictions on government agents are accomplished in the open, through laws and regulations. In this setting, all parties concerned is assumed or supposed to know the laws and regulations of government. Recently the concept of authority has also been discussed as a guiding principle in human-machine interaction design. Genetic research indicates that obedience to authority may be

3770-430: The social status afforded by such an image. According to Milgram, "the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer sees himself as responsible for his actions. Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred in the person, all of the essential features of obedience follow." Thus, "the major problem for

3835-409: The study obeyed orders and turned aggressive. Prisoners likewise were hostile to and resented their guards. The cruelty of the "guards" and the consequent stress of the "prisoners," forced Zimbardo to terminate the experiment prematurely, after 6 days. The previous two studies greatly influenced how modern psychologists think about obedience. Milgram's study in particular generated a large response from

3900-429: The subject is to recapture control of his own regnant processes once he has committed them to the purposes of the experimenter." Besides this hypothetical agentic state, Milgram proposed the existence of other factors accounting for the subject's obedience: politeness, awkwardness of withdrawal, absorption in the technical aspects of the task, the tendency to attribute impersonal quality to forces that are essentially human,

3965-536: The underlying cause for the subjects' striking conduct could well be conceptual, and not the alleged 'capacity of man to abandon his humanity ... as he merges his unique personality into larger institutional structures."' In humans: In animals: Authority Authority is commonly understood as the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state , authority may be practiced by legislative , executive , and judicial branches of government , each of which has authority and

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4030-464: The well-being of the learner were more hesitant to continue the study. He also found that the more the experimenter prodded the participant to continue, the more likely they were to stop the experiment. The Utrecht University study also replicated Milgram's results. They found that although participants indicated they did not enjoy the task, over 90% of them completed the experiment. The Bocchiaro and Zimbardo study had similar levels of obedience compared to

4095-525: Was a painful or dangerous shock. A similar conclusion was reached in the Stanford prison experiment. Raj Persaud , in an article in the BMJ, comments on Milgram's attention to detail in his experiment: The research was also conducted with amazing verve and subtlety—for example, Milgram ensured that the "experimenter" wear a grey lab coat rather than a white one, precisely because he did not want subjects to think that

4160-400: Was integral to the practice of self-government as Lincoln saw it by a Republican nation and its people. This was because, as Lincoln also declared, "No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent." The U.S. president is called to give account to the legislature for the conduct of the whole government, including that of regulatory agencies. The president influences

4225-427: Was not as important to public opinion polling numbers as religious and moral beliefs. Although prior research has demonstrated that the tendency to obey persists across settings, this finding suggests that at personal factors like religion and morality can limit how much people obey authority. Both the Milgram and Stanford experiments were conducted in research settings. In 1966, psychiatrist Charles K. Hofling published

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