---
title: Obedience to authority
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/
description: In Stanley Milgram's experiments of the early 1960s, most ordinary volunteers kept giving what they believed were painful electric shocks to a stranger…
section: Learn
---

![Illustration: a Second World War naval-intelligence collage of a Pacific theatre map, aerial reconnaissance photographs and radar plots.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-wwii-pacific.jpg)

[Learn](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/) · Group identity

# Obedience to authority

In brief

Most volunteers in Milgram's experiments kept delivering apparent shocks when told to, and similar compliance was later reproduced, but why they complied, whether automatic deference or identification with a cause, is disputed.

On this page

- [In brief](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/#in-brief)
- [What the research shows](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/#what-the-research-shows)
- [Has it held up?](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/#has-it-held-up)
- [How it shows up in political messaging](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/#how-it-shows-up-in-political-messaging)
- [How to spot it](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/#how-to-spot-it)
- [Persuasion or manipulation?](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/#persuasion-or-manipulation)
- [Archive techniques that lean on this](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/#archive-techniques-that-lean-on-this)
- [Related topics](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/#related-topics)
- [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/#sources)
- [Images](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/obedience-to-authority/#images)

On this page

*Area: [Group identity](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/group-identity/) · Evidence:**moderate**([How we rate the evidence](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/evidence-ratings/)). High rates of compliance have been reproduced, but what the famous experiments actually measured is seriously disputed.*

## In brief

In Stanley Milgram's experiments of the early 1960s, most ordinary volunteers kept giving what they believed were painful electric shocks to a stranger because a researcher told them to continue. Partial replications decades later found similar compliance. What remains in dispute is why. The older reading is that people defer to authority almost automatically. A newer reading, with growing evidence, is that people follow leaders they identify with and whose cause they believe in. For political messaging, that difference matters: authority persuades best when it is wrapped in a mission.

## What the research shows

In Milgram's first published study, 40 men recruited through newspaper ads and mail were told they were helping with research on memory. As the "teacher," each was asked to give a "learner" (an actor) shocks of rising strength for every wrong answer, on a machine labeled from 15 to 450 volts. The shocks were fake, but the protests were scripted to sound real. When participants hesitated, the experimenter used a set series of verbal prods. Every participant went to at least 300 volts, and 26 of the 40 (65 percent) went to the maximum [1].

Milgram then ran many variations, reported in his 1974 book [2]. Obedience fell sharply when the experimenter gave orders by telephone from another room (to about 20 percent), when the teacher had to press the learner's hand onto a shock plate (30 percent), and most of all when two fellow "teachers" (also actors) refused to continue (10 percent). Proximity to the victim, distance from the authority and the presence of peers who resist all changed the outcome a great deal.

![Bar chart: 65 percent went to the maximum shock in Milgram's first study, about 20 percent when orders came by telephone, 30 percent when the teacher pressed the learner's hand onto a plate, and 10 percent when two fellow teachers refused](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/images/psych-obedience-milgram-variations.svg)

*Drawn by FRAME from Milgram (1963) [1] and Milgram (1974) [2]; variation rates are approximate. CC BY 4.0 (FRAME).*

In 2006, Jerry Burger ran an ethically limited version that stopped at 150 volts, the point where the learner first demands to be released. Because most of Milgram's participants who passed that point went on to the end, it served as a reasonable stand-in. Burger's obedience rate was only slightly lower than Milgram's 45 years earlier [3]. A Polish team led by Dariusz Doliński, using lower-level shocks, found that 90 percent of participants went to the highest level available [4].

## Has it held up?

The behavior has been reproduced; the classic interpretation has not held up as well.

Gina Perry's archival investigation of the session recordings found that the experimenter (mainly the actor John Williams) often departed from the script, improvising extra, more coercive prods, and that the neat 65 percent figure came from one condition among many with widely varying results [5]. A later reanalysis by Perry and colleagues of an unpublished survey by Milgram's assistant found that in 18 of 23 variations, participants who fully believed they were causing pain gave lower shocks than those who doubted it. Skepticism about the setup, in other words, seems to have inflated obedience [6].

Alexander Haslam and Stephen Reicher propose "engaged followership" as an alternative account. Participants did not simply submit to orders; many continued because they identified with the scientific project and trusted the experimenter's purpose [7]. In an analogue study that used a milder task but Milgram's four standard prods, the only one that was a direct order ("You have no other choice, you must go on") was the least effective, while prods appealing to the needs of the experiment were the most effective [8]. On this view, people commit harm when they come to see it as serving a worthy cause led by someone they identify with.

The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971) is often cited alongside Milgram as proof that people slide automatically into cruel roles. Its standard account is contested. Archival work by Thibault Le Texier found that the "guards" were coached toward harsh behavior by the organizers, so it cannot be read as evidence of spontaneous obedience or role conformity [9].

## How it shows up in political messaging

- **Leader-as-nation appeals.** A Nazi Party poster for the 1934 referendum merging the offices of chancellor and president showed Hitler above a crowd with the slogan "Ja! Führer, wir folgen Dir!" ("Yes! Leader, we follow you!") [10]. The request was not to weigh the constitutional change but to follow.
- **"Just following orders."** Hannah Arendt's report on the 1961 Eichmann trial described him as a thoughtless functionary and coined "the banality of evil" [11]. Bettina Stangneth's later study of Eichmann's own postwar writings and recorded interviews showed a committed ideologue who took pride in his work [12], a picture closer to engaged followership than to mindless obedience.
- **Military atrocity and public opinion.** After the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, Herbert Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton studied how many Americans accepted Lieutenant William Calley's defense that he was obeying orders, and identified authorization, routinization and dehumanization as common ingredients of "crimes of obedience" [13].
- **Party cues.** Geoffrey Cohen found that both liberal and conservative students judged a welfare policy mainly by which party they were told endorsed it, and denied being influenced [14]. Michael Barber and Jeremy Pope found that many Republicans, especially strong partisans and low-knowledge respondents, shifted toward whatever position Donald Trump was said to hold, liberal or conservative [15]. Deference follows trusted leaders on every side.
- **Commanders' endorsements.** Wartime material regularly let a commander's name carry the argument, as in [Pershing Says: The S.O.S. Shares the Success With Us](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pershing-says-sos-1918/).

![School group photograph, Mirandola, Italy, under portraits of the King and Mussolini and a banner reading Credere Obbedire Combattere](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/credere-obbedire-combattere-mirandola-1938.jpg)

*["Credere Obbedire Combattere": a school group photograph, Mirandola, 1938](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/credere-obbedire-combattere-mirandola-1938/): Students and teachers of the Regio Liceo-Ginnasio, Mirandola, under the Fascist youth motto "Credere, Obbedire, Combattere" (Believe, Obey, Fight), 1938. Public domain.*

![American Expeditionary Forces poster quoting General Pershing's congratulations to the Services of Supply](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/pershing-says-sos-1918.jpg)

*[Pershing Says: The S.O.S. Shares the Success With Us](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pershing-says-sos-1918/): "Pershing Says: The S.O.S. Shares the Success With Us", American Expeditionary Forces, 1918. A commander's name carrying the message. Public domain.*

## How to spot it

- The reason given is who ordered or endorsed something, not what it does.
- Duty, loyalty or "the mission" is offered as the reason to set aside a personal objection.
- The leader is presented as the voice of the nation, the people or science itself.
- Responsibility is shifted upward ("the decision was made above us") or diffused across a process.
- Dissenters are described as disloyal rather than answered.

## Persuasion or manipulation?

Citing a relevant authority is often honest and useful: an epidemiologist on disease or an engineer on a bridge brings real expertise, and saying who holds a position is fair. It tips into manipulation when the authority is irrelevant to the question, when an endorsement replaces the evidence it should summarize, or when a cause is framed so that following the leader feels like a moral duty that overrides the reader's own judgment. Milgram's variations point to what helps people resist: seeing the harm clearly and seeing others refuse.

## Archive techniques that lean on this

- [Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/) — Testimonial: a named authority vouches so the audience stops checking, drawing on the deference Milgram measured.
- [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) — Transfer: borrows the prestige of science, the flag or the office, the kind of higher purpose that the engaged-followership research found moves people most.

## Related topics

- [Conformity](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/conformity/) — Conformity
- [Social identity](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/social-identity/) — Social identity
- [Dehumanization](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/dehumanization/) — Dehumanization
- [Social proof](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/social-proof/) — Social proof

## Sources

1. Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. *Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology*, 67(4), 371–378.
2. Milgram, S. (1974). *Obedience to authority: An experimental view*. New York: Harper & Row.
3. Burger, J. M. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today? *American Psychologist*, 64(1), 1–11.
4. Doliński, D., Grzyb, T., Folwarczny, M., Grzybała, P., Krzyszycha, K., Martynowska, K., & Trojanowski, J. (2017). Would you deliver an electric shock in 2015? Obedience in the experimental paradigm developed by Stanley Milgram in the 50 years following the original studies. *Social Psychological and Personality Science*. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617693060
5. Perry, G. (2012). *Behind the shock machine: The untold story of the notorious Milgram psychology experiments*. Melbourne: Scribe. (US edition: The New Press, 2013.)
6. Perry, G., Brannigan, A., Wanner, R. A., & Stam, H. (2020). Credibility and incredulity in Milgram's obedience experiments: A reanalysis of an unpublished test. *Social Psychology Quarterly*, 83(1), 88–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272519861952
7. Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2012). Contesting the "nature" of conformity: What Milgram and Zimbardo's studies really show. *PLoS Biology*, 10(11), e1001426. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001426
8. Haslam, S. A., Reicher, S. D., & Birney, M. E. (2014). Nothing by mere authority: Evidence that in an experimental analogue of the Milgram paradigm participants are motivated not by orders but by appeals to science. *Journal of Social Issues*, 70(3), 473–488. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12072
9. Le Texier, T. (2019). Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment. *American Psychologist*, 74(7), 823–839.
10. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Nazi Party propaganda poster for 1934 referendum. *Holocaust Encyclopedia*. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/photo/1934-nazi-party-propaganda-poster
11. Arendt, H. (1963). *Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil*. New York: Viking Press.
12. Stangneth, B. (2014). *Eichmann before Jerusalem: The unexamined life of a mass murderer*. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
13. Kelman, H. C., & Hamilton, V. L. (1989). *Crimes of obedience: Toward a social psychology of authority and responsibility*. New Haven: Yale University Press.
14. Cohen, G. L. (2003). Party over policy: The dominating impact of group influence on political beliefs. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology*, 85(5), 808–822. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.5.808
15. Barber, M., & Pope, J. C. (2019). Does party trump ideology? Disentangling party and ideology in America. *American Political Science Review*, 113(1), 38–54.

## Images

| Image | Source | Licence |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Bar chart: obedience in Milgram's study and three variations | Drawn by FRAME from Milgram (1963, 1974) (`make_group_identity_charts.py`) | CC BY 4.0, FRAME |
| Mirandola school photograph (1938) | FRAME gallery, ["Credere Obbedire Combattere": a school group photograph, Mirandola, 1938](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/credere-obbedire-combattere-mirandola-1938/) | Public domain (Italian simple photograph) |
| *Pershing Says* (1918) | FRAME gallery, [Pershing Says: The S.O.S. Shares the Success With Us](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pershing-says-sos-1918/) | Public domain |

### Image gaps

Photographs and film stills of the Milgram sessions (held by Yale and by Milgram's estate) and the 1934 "Ja! Führer, wir folgen Dir!" poster were not verified as public domain or openly licensed, so they are cited, not hosted.

## Techniques

[Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)

## Related

- [Conformity](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/conformity/)
- [Social identity](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/social-identity/)
- [Dehumanization](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/dehumanization/)
- [Social proof](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/social-proof/)
- [Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/)
- [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)