The Fear Factor Read online

  Obedience (1962) (documentary film), filmed at Yale University, released 1965. Courtesy ProQuest.

  So he continued.

  What Milgram discovered at Yale did not necessarily demonstrate that Eichmann had been telling the truth. Indeed, more recent evidence has suggested that functionaries like Eichmann were not simply cogs in a machine but were proactively and creatively working to advance Nazi causes.

  But Milgram did show that Eichmann could have been telling the truth. His studies showed that, under the right circumstances, ordinary people will engage in horrific, sadistic crimes if an authority figure who is willing to take responsibility for the outcome instructs them to do so. In another era, under a different regime, Eichmann might indeed have led an ordinary, blameless life. There may have been nothing fundamentally evil about him as a person that would have inexorably led him to perpetuate atrocities. The opposite is also true, of course. Under the right circumstances, ordinary, otherwise blameless people—say, a shopkeeper from Bridgeport, Connecticut—could wind up plotting the torture and deaths of millions of innocent people. After all, the otherwise ordinary, blameless Connecticut shopkeepers and millworkers and teachers in Milgram’s studies had, to their knowledge, willingly taken part in torture, false imprisonment, and perhaps even murder in exchange for four dollars and fifty cents.

  Milgram would muse in an interview on CBS’s Sixty Minutes some years later, “I would say, on the basis of having observed a thousand people in the experiment and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments, that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town.”

  Nobody disputes Milgram’s basic findings, at least not explicitly. But on some level, most people also don’t really buy them. Deep down, nobody really believes that Adolf Eichmann was an ordinary guy who happened to work for bad managers. Neither do most people believe that a mild-mannered authority figure could induce them personally to override their own moral values and torture someone. Psychology students who watch the videos of Milgram’s experiments in classrooms across America every year all reassure themselves, That would never be me. So do the Internet surfers who come across the studies on Wikipedia. That would never be me, they think. Maybe some middle-aged, cigarette-smoking, work shirt–wearing, Connecticut-accented, Mad Men–era dupe would be gullible enough to follow those orders, but not me.

  But midcentury conformity has nothing to do with it. Neither does gender or age or social class. Male and female college students in California who were run through a nearly identical experiment only a few years ago acted no better than Milgram’s subjects. Versions of the study have been run with varying compositions of study participants across generations and countries—from England to South Africa to Jordan—and they have all replicated Milgram’s findings. What do these numbingly familiar results mean? That none of us—not you, not me, not Pope Francis or Bono or Oprah Winfrey or anyone else—can claim with confidence that, if it had been us called into Stanley Milgram’s Yale laboratory, we wouldn’t have kept pulling those levers too.

  The basic findings of these studies are clear and widely accepted. They are also, unfortunately, often misinterpreted. It is easy to draw the conclusion after learning about Milgram’s studies or watching the video footage of them that people are uniformly callous and heartless, that within each of us lies a little Eichmann content to inflict terrible suffering on strangers. I certainly did when I first learned about the studies. But in fact, this is not at all what they show.

  First of all, when you watch the video footage of the studies, it is obvious that the volunteers were anything but heartless. Even the ones who kept on shocking Mr. Wallace until the bitter end were visibly miserable. They paused and sighed gustily. They buried their heads in their hands, rubbing their foreheads before drying their sweaty palms on their pants. They chewed on their lips. They emitted nervous, mirthless chuckles. Between shocks, they implored the experimenter to let them stop. Milgram reported that at some point every participant either questioned the experiment or refused the payment he had been promised. When the experiment finally did stop and it was revealed that Mr. Wallace was only an actor, the participants looked shaky with relief. The major reason the studies are now considered ethically dubious is because of how much the volunteers themselves appeared to suffer.

  Second, the volunteers’ responses weren’t uniform. True, fully half of the volunteers carried out all of the instructed shocks when Mr. Wallace was seated in a separate room from them. But at some point the other half refused to continue. Even more refused in a variation of the study in which all the men sat in the same room. On the other hand, many fewer refused when Mr. Wallace was sealed off in a separate room that left him totally inaudible to the volunteers. Milgram ran these and many other permutations of the study designed to make either the experimenter’s authority or Mr. Wallace’s suffering more or less obvious. The proportion of volunteers who continued carrying out the shocks fluctuated in each permutation, but never did the volunteers behave as a bloc. Inevitably, some continued following the experimenter’s orders while others refused—bucking authority to spare a stranger from harm.

  It’s worth taking a moment to flip things around—to think about what motivated those who ultimately disobeyed the experimenter’s orders. After all, why not just keep on shocking Mr. Wallace? In theory, if people are uniformly callous, this is what they should all have done. It was the path of least resistance. There was no external reward for stopping. Nor was it likely that the volunteers feared punishment if they kept going—the experimenter repeatedly reassured them that he would take responsibility for Mr. Wallace’s fate. Did social norms constrain them? Probably not. In a situation so far out of the ordinary—leather arm straps, lab coats, a shock generator—exactly what social norms would have applied? So if our refuseniks neither anticipated reward nor feared punishment, and weren’t trying to adhere to some norm, what was left? What about compassion—simple concern for the welfare of someone who was suffering?

  This seems the only likely explanation. The volunteers’ entreaties to stop the experiment always invoked Mr. Wallace’s welfare. Those who eventually stopped administering shocks said it was because they refused to cause him further suffering.

  Even more striking, when you look across all the permutations of the study, it becomes clear that compassion is a stronger force than obedience. Think about it this way: When Mr. Wallace was seated in a separate room—invisible and audible only through the intercom—and the experimenter was in the room with the volunteer, the proportion of people who obeyed versus bucked authority was perfectly balanced. Milgram described the influences that the experimenter and Mr. Wallace exerted as analogous to fields of force. That an equal balance between these forces was achieved when the experimenter, but not Mr. Wallace, was standing right next to the volunteer suggests that the experimenter’s authority was a weaker force than Mr. Wallace’s suffering. To exert equal influence, the experimenter needed to be physically closer. When the experimenter and Mr. Wallace were in equal proximity to the volunteer—when both were in the room with the volunteer, or both were outside it—fewer than half the volunteers fully obeyed. The pull of compassion, on average, was stronger than the pull of obedience.

  Competing fields of force akin to those depicted by Stanley Milgram. An equal balance between forces is achieved only when the stronger force is farther removed from the subject than the weaker force.

  Abigail Marsh.

  This is an oddly heartwarming message from a study not usually thought of as heartwarming: Milgram actually demonstrated that compassion for a perfect stranger is powerful and common. This is particularly interesting given that Mr. Wallace was hardly the world’s most compassion-inducing person. He was a portly, middle-aged man who wasn’t especially cute or cuddly-looking and who was a stranger to the volunteers in the stu
dy. They’d never met him before, they spoke with him only briefly before the study started, and they were unlikely to ever see him again. He never did anything for them. Why should they have cared about his welfare at all? And yet they did. They ultimately cared more about Mr. Wallace’s welfare than they cared about obeying authority, even though their obedience is what everyone remembers.

  Now, you could argue that compassion that merely stops someone from zapping a stranger with painful shocks isn’t very impressive. More impressive would be compassion that moved volunteers to make some sacrifice to help Mr. Wallace—to give up their payment or undergo some risk to make the shocks stop. Or, even better, to offer to switch roles and receive the shocks in his place. Sadly, Milgram never thought to give his volunteers that chance. But someone else did. Although he is not as well known as Milgram, no social psychologist has uncovered more about the nature of human compassion than Daniel Batson.

  Batson holds not one but two doctoral degrees from Princeton University: one in theology and one in psychology. He is linked to Milgram by only one degree of separation: his psychology graduate mentor was John Darley, famed for his studies of bystander apathy. Darley earned his doctoral degree from Harvard in 1965, when Milgram was on the faculty. Darley would probably have taken classes with Milgram, and he certainly crossed paths with him. Darley’s student Batson spent his academic career at the University of Kansas conducting research on spirituality, empathy, and altruism—including one study undoubtedly inspired by Milgram’s. But Batson’s study used electrical shocks to investigate how far compassion would drive ordinary people to help a stranger.

  Batson recruited his volunteers for the study—all of whom were women—from an introductory psychology course. Each volunteer arriving in the lab was met by an experimenter who told her that the other subject in the study that day was running a little late and could she read a description of the study while they waited? Then the experimenter handed the volunteer a leaflet that described a study that was similar in many ways to Milgram’s. It explained that the study was investigating the effects of electric shocks on work performance. As in Milgram’s study, Batson’s volunteers believed that random chance dictated that the other volunteer would be receiving the shocks instead of themselves. But Batson’s volunteers would not be administering any shocks personally. They would merely be watching the other volunteer being shocked via closed-circuit television while they evaluated her performance.

  Watching someone get shocked sounds much easier than actually giving someone shocks, and initially it probably was. The other “volunteer,” actually an actor posing as an undergraduate, eventually arrived, and the first volunteer watched her on-screen as she introduced herself to the experimenter as Elaine and was escorted into the shock chamber. There the experimenter explained the study to her and attached electrodes, much like those used by Milgram, to her arm. Elaine stopped her at one point to ask how bad the shocks would be. The researcher answered that the shocks would be painful but wouldn’t cause any “permanent damage.” After this less than reassuring response, the experiment began.

  Elaine’s job was to remember many long series of numbers. Every so often, while she was in the middle of trying to recite the numbers, the experimenters would administer a strong shock to her arm. It was obvious to the volunteer watching through the monitor how much pain the shocks caused Elaine. With each one, her face contorted and her body jerked visibly. A galvanic skin response reading showed that her hands were sweating profusely. Her reactions grew stronger as the study progressed and the volunteer watched from the other room while trying to evaluate poor Elaine’s memory performance. You can imagine her relief when the experimenter eventually paused the experiment to ask Elaine if she was able to go on. Elaine replied that she could, but could they take a break so she could have a drink of water? When the experimenter returned with the glass, Elaine confessed that the experiment was bringing back memories of having been thrown by a horse onto an electric fence when she was a child, a traumatic experience that left her fearful of even mild shocks.

  Hearing this, the experimenter protested that Elaine definitely should not continue with the study. Elaine backtracked, saying she knew the experiment was important and she wanted to keep her promise to complete it. The experimenter was briefly stumped. She thought for a moment, then suggested another option. What if Elaine switched places with the volunteer watching from the other room and they carried on with the experiment with the roles reversed?

  The experimenter returned to the room where the volunteer sat. She closed the door behind her and explained the situation. The volunteer was completely free to make whatever choice she wanted, the experimenter emphasized: to switch places with Elaine or to continue as the observer. The experimenter even gave some volunteers an easy out—if they decided to continue as the observer, they could just answer a few more questions about Elaine and then they were free to go. They didn’t have to watch Elaine any more on the screen. Other volunteers were told that if they chose to continue as the observer, they’d have to watch Elaine get up to eight more shocks.

  Put yourself in the volunteer’s place for a moment. You’ve been watching a stranger obviously suffering. Maybe you’ve been trying to tune out her reactions to the shocks, or maybe you’ve been thinking of asking the experimenter to stop the experiment. Maybe you’ve just been feeling relieved that it wasn’t you getting shocked. Then suddenly the experimenter appears and turns the tables: it’s up to you to decide what happens next. Would you let Elaine keep suffering, or would you be willing to suffer in her place? Would it make a difference if you had to keep on watching her suffer? Batson didn’t query any psychiatrists in advance about what they thought the volunteers would do, but perhaps you have a guess. Would any of these teenage women volunteer to receive painful electric shocks to spare a stranger from getting them? How many out of the forty-four volunteers? One or two? Half?

  As in Milgram’s studies, the researchers varied several features of the experiment, each of which shaped the volunteers’ decisions to some degree. One important factor turned out to be how similar the volunteer perceived Elaine to be to herself. Volunteers who perceived Elaine as similar to themselves were twice as likely to help as those who didn’t. Whether they would have to watch Elaine continue suffering or whether they could flee also mattered, although less so. But across all the variants of the experiment, a whopping twenty-eight of the forty-four volunteers (a majority by nearly a two-to-one margin) said that they would prefer to take the rest of the shocks themselves rather than watch Elaine suffer through them anymore. Even when offered the chance to escape, over half the volunteers offered to take Elaine’s place. In no variation of the experiment was Elaine left high and dry. When asked how many of the remaining study trials they’d be willing to complete in Elaine’s place (with the most possible being eight; Elaine herself only completed two), the volunteers in some versions of the study offered to complete, on average, seven.

  Stanley Milgram famously revealed that ordinary people are willing to give a stranger painful electric shocks when told to do so by an authority figure. Less famously, he also found that when the power of authority and compassion are pitted equally against each other, compassion ultimately wins. Recall that when the experimenter was in the room with a volunteer and Mr. Wallace was in an adjacent room, half of the volunteers continued shocking Mr. Wallace until the end of the experiment. But when the experimenter’s and Mr. Wallace’s proximity to a volunteer were equal—when both were in the room with the volunteer, or both outside it—obedience in Milgram’s studies dropped below 50 percent, suggesting that the pull of compassion is, on average, stronger than the pull of obedience. Even less famously (sadly!), Batson found that when people are able to choose freely, most will opt to receive electrical shocks themselves rather than let a suffering stranger continue receiving them. Taken together, the real message of these studies is that, when given the opportunity, some people will behave callously or even
aggressively toward a suffering stranger—but more people will not. Compassion is powerful. And so is individual variability.

  Together, these studies and others like them provided me with my first clues to help solve the mystery of my roadside rescuer. He and all the other drivers who encountered me that night on the freeway found themselves in an identical situation, and it was a situation ideally designed to minimize compassion. I was completely sealed off from the drivers who passed me—trapped inside my car, inaudible and perhaps invisible to them. They wouldn’t have known whether I was young or old, similar or dissimilar to themselves, one person or several. The many dangers they would face if they stopped to help would have been all too obvious. Escape from the situation was as easy as not hitting the brakes. Plus, the drivers had only the briefest of moments to decide what to do as they passed by. Under these circumstances, I would never conclude that any of the dozens of people who drove by me without stopping that night was incapable of compassion, any more than I would conclude that about the Milgram volunteers who could neither hear nor see Mr. Wallace and continued shocking him, or the Batson volunteers who left the experiment instead of volunteering to take the shocks for Elaine. The force of my suffering was too far removed from those who passed me to overcome the much stronger and more salient forces of self-preservation and easy escape—for most people. Thank God for variability. Even in these unpropitious circumstances, the drivers did not act as a bloc. One of them stopped to help. And one was all I needed.

  Although heroes often argue otherwise, they do seem to be unlike other people in some important ways. Confronted by the same situation—a stranded motorist, a screaming man, a distressed young woman—they are moved to help rather than ignore or flee the situation. Thinking back to Milgram’s conception of fields of force, one possibility is that heroes are somehow impervious to the forces that work against heroism, like self-preservation. But this doesn’t seem to comport with the experiences of heroes like Cory Booker. He didn’t race through a burning building to save his neighbor because he was insensitive to the risks he faced. Far from it—he described himself as having been terrified for his life throughout the ordeal.