Psychologists Have Uncovered a Troubling Feature of People Who Seem Too Nice

[To Be Quite Honest]

Link is long

In 1961, curious about a person's willingness to obey an authority figure, social psychologist Stanley Milgram began trials on his now-famous experiment. In it, he tested how far a subject would go electrically shocking a stranger (actually an actor faking the pain) simply because they were following orders. Some subjects, Milgram found, would follow directives until the person was dead.

[Coach]

Doesn't really surprise me. Would would that be? Lack of empathy? Lack of self-awareness? Lack of common sense?

Or maybe an extreme aversion to displeasing people?

[mrkajz44]

Isn't this sort of how mobs happen? If someone else is saying or doing something (negative in this case), you can very easily join in or "follow orders" avoiding your own personal moral compass. Sort of a scapegoat effect ("it wasn't my idea, I was just following orders / following along")

[GGG]

I'm not sure how this is new. There is a fantastic online book called the Authoritarians written by a U of M prof discussing this issue and how it affects the religious and political right in the US.

Essentially there are a group of people who through enviromental factors have been conditioned to believe what authorities tell them. Then there is a group of people with personalities that desire to control the for lack of a better term sheep.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

[Enoch Root]

So is the purpose of this thread to discuss a 1961 experiment that has been a standard part of Psych101 ever since?

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

So is the purpose of this thread to discuss a 1961 experiment that has been a standard part of Psych101 ever since?

That experiment has also been largely discredited due to lack of scientific rigour and partial falsification of results.

(So really it should have been removed from Psych101 a long while back.)

[kirant]

Originally Posted by Itse

That experiment has also been largely discredited due to lack of scientific rigour and partial falsification of results.

Was just going to mention this. Weren't the reported results only a small section of the data set?

[Itse]

Originally Posted by kirant

Was just going to mention this. Weren't the reported results only a small section of the data set?

IIRC yes, and that was not the only problem.

I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find several sources on the topic on the internet, for those who are interested in the details. (I've read about it, but it's been a while.)

[To Be Quite Honest]

Originally Posted by Itse

That experiment has also been largely discredited due to lack of scientific rigour and partial falsification of results.

(So really it should have been removed from Psych101 a long while back.)

So it's actually a "now infamous experiment".

[Shawnski]

Originally Posted by To Be Quite Honest

So it's actually a "now infamous experiment".

So, you are deferring to "authority" from two simply posts?

Interesting.....

[Nage Waza]

First year psychology?

[To Be Quite Honest]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

So, you are deferring to "authority" from two simply posts?

Interesting.....

Ha ha, I have nothing invested. I just saw it on FB and re-posted it here.

[GP_Matt]

I am still confused about how the thread title relates to the Milgram experiment.

What does a willingness to follow an authority figure have to do with overly nice people?

[TorqueDog]

I thought the answer would be "after a while, they're incredibly annoying".

[getbak]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

I am still confused about how the thread title relates to the Milgram experiment.

What does a willingness to follow an authority figure have to do with overly nice people?

The second paragraph of the link is really what should have been quoted in the OP:

The news: A new Milgram-like experiment published this month in the Journal of Personality has taken this idea to the next step by trying to understand which kinds of people are more or less willing to obey these kinds of orders. What researchers discovered was surprising: Those who are described as "agreeable, conscientious personalities" are more likely to follow orders and deliver electric shocks that they believe can harm innocent people, while "more contrarian, less agreeable personalities" are more likely to refuse to hurt others.

I don't think it's that surprising that someone who is generally agreeable is more likely to follow orders without question than someone who is generally contrarian. A person who is likely to say no when someone suggests a restaurant they don't like isn't likely to gladly accept an order to torture someone for no reason (now, if it's the person who suggested the bad restaurant, that's another story).

I'd say that the problem isn't really that these people are too nice, it's that they're yes-men who are so eager for the approval of the authority figure that they don't question their instructions.

It's unfortunate that the person who questions authority is considered "not nice". What this really confirms is the old saying that when someone asks your opinion on a subject, they don't really want your honest opinion, they just want to hear their own opinion in a different voice.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Itse

That experiment has also been largely discredited due to lack of scientific rigour and partial falsification of results.

(So really it should have been removed from Psych101 a long while back.)

lol

well in my defense, I took Psych a long, long while back!

[afc wimbledon]

The unfortunate reality is we will all do despicable things to each other under orders, different people need different stressors to enable them, be it religion racism or the desire to steal your neighbours stuff and rape his wife.
If you can combine all three you get the 'best' results.