It's easy to get people to do bad things—this might be why

[Jim__]

From MedicalXpress:

In the 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram famously conducted experiments in a Yale University basement showing that people will apparently inflict pain on another person simply because someone in a position of authority told them to. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on Feb. 18, 2016 have taken those classic experiments one step further, providing new evidence that might help to explain why people are so easily coerced.

According to the new work by researchers at University College London and Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, when someone gives us an order, we actually feel less responsible for our actions and their painful consequences.

"Maybe some basic feeling of responsibility really is reduced when we are coerced into doing something," says Patrick Haggard of University College London. "People often claim reduced responsibility because they were 'only obeying orders.' But are they just saying that to avoid punishment, or do orders really change the basic experience of responsibility?"

Haggard and his colleagues sought to answer this question by measuring a phenomenon called "sense of agency." This is the feeling that one's actions have caused some external event. For instance, Haggard has explained, if you flip a light switch and a light comes on, you often experience those events as being nearly simultaneous, even if there's a lag.

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[daleanime]

1. Bookmarked

[hobbit709]

2. I've always had a hard time following orders.

My usual response is "You want me to do WHAT?"

Needless to say it got me into a lot of trouble during my government servitude.

[Igel]

3. That can be as irrational as doing things because you're told.

It's been pointed out that while some subcultures value compliance and just following orders (even when they're not necessarily good ones), others privilege defiance even when the orders or expectations are neutral or even have positive outcomes.

"You need to get to class."

"That just makes me want to roam the halls."

"You're not allowed over there because it took tens of thousands of years for those crystal to be formed."
"That just makes me want to break them to show I don't have to do what you tell me."