How did the "theory of 6 handshakes" appear, and what is the secret of the phenomenon of obedience to authority

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Ordinary executors of the orders of the Nazi leaders - who are they? How did it happen that in a developed European state there were so many people capable of atrocities and extreme cruelty? This question, which tormented humanity after the Second World War, was answered as a result of a series of psychological experiments by Stanley Milgram. The result shocked both the researcher and the whole world.

Social media and the six handshake theory

Stanley Milgram is the one thanks to whom the "theory of six handshakes", which is so popular now, appeared, according to which every person on the planet is connected with every other on average through six of his acquaintances. She was born as a result of a series of experiments that this American scientist conducted in 1967. "The world is small" - that was the name of the research, and their purpose was to determine the average length of the chain of acquaintances that connected any two residents of the United States. For the experiment, we took the most distant from each other geographically and not similar in social indicators cities: Omaha in Nebraska and Wichita in Kansas on the one hand and Boston in Massachusetts on the other.

Randomly selected people in the first two cities received letters from Milgram and his team detailing the experiment and information about a person living in Boston. If the participant of the experiment knew this person, he was asked to send that letter. A much more likely option was that he did not know the Bostonian, then the participant should have chosen from among his acquaintances those who most likely knew the addressee, and sent him a letter, making a note in the attached register.

Based on the total number of stages of sending the letter, conclusions were drawn about the social ties that unite American society. Most of the subjects refused to forward, but still, out of 296 letters sent initially, 64 reached the final addressee. The length of the "chain" ranged from two to ten people, and it turned out that, on average, after five to six contacts, "intermediaries" turned out to be associated with a randomly chosen addressee of letters. Around those years, the concept of "social network" appeared, without which it is impossible to imagine modern reality, even though the term itself now means somewhat different, virtual connections between people.

But the loudest, most striking was another experiment by Stanley Milgram, one that was devoted to the study of a person's ability to resist a boss if he gives orders to hurt other people and generally do something outside the bounds of the permissible.

Who became the instrument of Nazi ideology and why: Milgram's experiments

Stanley Milgram was born in 1933 to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. With the end of the war, his parents welcomed relatives who survived imprisonment in a concentration camp, and the theme of the Holocaust forever became for Milgram the main, defining one, including in his work. He was educated in the field of social psychology, became a doctor of philosophy. In his research, the scientist tried to answer the question of how far a person can go in an effort to fulfill the order of his superiors or any authority figure.

How was it possible for ordinary Germans to become active participants in the extermination of Jews, to get jobs in death camps, to carry out the most monstrous orders of Nazi leaders? An illustration was the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a former SS officer who was directly responsible for the "final solution of the Jewish question", that is, the extermination of millions of civilians in Europe. Was this person and those who obeyed him sadists, psychopaths, perverts? What could make people do things that are unacceptable from the point of view of humanity? Philosopher Hannah Arendt, who developed the theory of totalitarianism, expressed the sense that Nazi Eichmann was neither a psychopath nor a monster. One of the main criminals in the history of mankind was, in her opinion, "an incredibly normal person, and his actions, which resulted in the death of millions of people, are the result of a desire to do a good job."

Milgram's experiment was carried out in 1961 in the building of Yale University. The participants in the experiment - the subjects were explained that a study was being made of the effect of pain on human memory. Therefore, they were asked to choose the role of either a "student" or a "teacher" by lot. In fact, there was no choice, since the role of the student was always played by the actor, and the subject was assigned the role of the teacher. The participants were shown a device that, when the necessary buttons were pressed, sent an electric discharge to the electrodes of the “student's” chair. Before the experiment began, the "teacher" received a small "demonstration" electric shock, after which, in front of his eyes, the "student" was tied to a chair. The "student" was supposedly asked to memorize a list of word pairs. The subject and the experimenter went into an adjacent soundproof room, from where, using a microphone, the “teacher” checked the memory of the “student”, reading the first word to him and asking him to choose the second word of the pair from four options. To answer the “student” pressed one of the four buttons, the corresponding light in the “teacher's” room came on. The idea of the experiment - as it was presented to the participant - was that the "student" for mistakes in the task should be punished with an electric shock.

The scenario was the same - the "student" gave several correct answers, then the wrong one, after which the "teacher" had to press a button that sends an electric shock. With a new wrong, we moved on to the next button, the blow became stronger; the maximum value on the buttons of the device showed 450 V, there was a signature: “Dangerous. An unbearable blow. " If the "teacher" hesitated, the experimenter had to say a prepared phrase about the need to continue the experiment - without intimidating the subject, without threatening him, only insisting on completing the task. After a while, the "student" began to knock on the wall, then he stopped answering what should be interpreted as a wrong answer. After the 315 V mark, both knocking and responses from the “student's” room stopped, but, according to the rules of the experiment, the “teacher” was required to continue pressing the buttons.

It is important to note that the participant in the experiment could actually interrupt it at any time and leave. The small remuneration announced for participation in any case remained with the “teacher”. No pressure was exerted on the subject - he was influenced only by the authority of the “scientist,” a man in a dressing gown who was responsible for the operation of a serious device and made “important” calculations. According to Milgram's plan, the experiment ended if the subject refused to continue after four pre-prepared phrases of the experimenter about the need to finish the work. Before conducting the experiment, Milgram conducted a survey among fellow psychologists about the predictions, and psychiatrists also expressed their opinion. According to these experts, from 0, 1 to 2 percent of the subjects would have brought the matter to the maximum magnitude of the current shock. The experts were very wrong. The "student" (by that time no longer showed any activity) was "punished" by 65 percent of the "teachers" with a 450 V discharge. In all these cases, the experiment was terminated, not by the participant, but by the investigator.

10 percent of the subjects stopped at the level of 315 volts, when the “student” had already stopped giving answers and knocking on the wall, 12.5% refused to continue when the level reached 300 V. The rest stopped pressing the buttons earlier, with less voltage.

They are you and me

The publication of the results of Milgram's experiment caused a sensation in the world of science and in society. A wave of criticism arose - the scientist was accused of not taking into account the influence of external factors, such as, for example, the reputation of Yale University, under the guise of which the experiment was conducted, the gender of the subjects, their inclination to this kind of research as a form of sadism. Subsequently, the experiment was repeated many times, in different countries, with different variations, and the potential impact of any of the factors mentioned on the final results was excluded. The female subjects showed the same numbers, and the same results were brought by research conducted on behalf of some little-known laboratory.

But what really influenced the behavior of the "teachers" was the closeness of the experimenter and the closeness of the "student"-victim, as well as the presence of unanimity between the experimenters, if there were two of them. In the event that one insisted on continuing the experiment, and the other on stopping it, the "teacher" in all cases refused to press the button. Reduced the willingness to continue the experiment and the presence of the "student" in sight, and also the absence of the experimenter nearby. The conclusions that Milgram's experiment allowed to arrive at were that a person tends to go far, unexpectedly far in an effort to follow the instructions of someone who is recognized as an authority … A direct objection to a man in a dressing gown turned out to be impossible for the overwhelming majority of the subjects - ordinary people. At the same time, in cases where the influence of this "boss" weakened, the best, humane side of nature immediately prevailed in a person. The assumption that different nations tend to treat labor discipline differently was not justified (there was a version that the rule of Nazism was possible precisely due to the special diligence of the Germans). Studies in the USA, Spain, Holland, Germany and other countries have shown similar results.

Stanley Milgram published an article and then a book on submission to authority, and, after some debate over the controversial ethics of his experiments, became a member of the American Psychological Association. He taught at leading American universities and became one of the most influential social psychologists, but died at the age of only 51 from a heart attack.

And here how the trials of Nazi accomplices were held: how they were exposed and what they were accused of.