Obedience to authority studies and a provocative parallel

Over at The Situationist, Philip Zimbardo is doing a series of posts discussing Stanley Milgram’s famous obedience to authority experiments and his famous Stanford prison experiment.  In my view, anyone working in the criminal justice arena (or really in any legal field) should know about Milgram’s experiments and his remarkable findings; these new Zimbardo posts at The Situationist provide a great up-to-date entry into these important (and always timely) human dynamics.

Among many other highlights, this Zimbardo post reviews “ten lessons from the Milgram studies” concerning “what strategies can seduce ordinary citizens to engage in apparently harmful behavior.”  I cannot help but notice that one could find indirect expression of many such “strategies” in the functional operation of severe sentencing rules that demand imposition of extraordinary prison terms seemingly without concern for substantive, case-specific notions of justice.  Consider these entries from the Zimbardo list of Milgram’s obedience to authority lessons:

• Present basic rules to be followed that seem to make sense before their actual use but can then be used arbitrarily and impersonally to justify mindless compliance.  The authorities will change the rules as necessary but will insist that rules are rules and must be followed….

• Alter the semantics of the act, the actor, and the action — replacing unpleasant reality with desirable rhetoric, gilding the frame so that the real picture is disguised….

• Create opportunities for the diffusion of responsibility or abdication of responsibility for negative outcomes….

• Gradually change the nature of the authority figure from initially “just” and reasonable to “unjust” and demanding, even irrational….