Not just 'following orders': Nazi prison camp bosses 'took pride in what they were doing' new study claims

People do not just carry out evil acts because they naturally follow orders, say experts



Scottish psychologists instead found they must 'believe in what they are doing'

Nazi concentration camp bosses, such as Adolf Eichmann, who claimed they were just 'following orders' truly believed in what they were doing, researchers have claimed

Nazi concentration camp bosses who claimed they were just 'following orders' truly believed and took pride in what they were doing, researchers have claimed.



Landmark studies on human behaviour in the 1960s and 1970s had founded the theory that people carried out evil act because they naturally follow orders from figures of authority.

And Nazi war criminals famously tried the defence at the Nuremberg trials.



But Scottish psychologists have challenged the fifty-year-old findings after going back and re-examining the original experiments.



Professor Stephen Reicher of the University of St Andrews and Prof Alex Haslam of the University of Queensland, Australia, began their research ten years ago with a prison study which was broadcast on the BBC.

They found that volunteers given the role of 'guards' only acted brutally when they identified with their role and believed their actions were necessary to maintain control.

In a series of more recent experiments, they found that people will only bow to authority if they believe it is necessary to serve a greater good.



Professor Haslam said: 'Our own research shows that tyranny does not result from blind conformity to rules and roles, it is a creative act of followership that flows from identification with authorities who represent vicious acts as virtuous.'

The researchers both add: 'A series of thoroughgoing historical examinations have challenged the idea that Nazi bureaucrats were ever simply following orders.



'This may have been the defence they relied upon when seeking to minimize their culpability, but evidence suggests that functionaries like Eichmann (hanged in 1962 for his role in organising the Holocaust) had a very good understanding of what they were doing and took pride in the energy and application that they brought to their work.



Nazi war criminals tried the defence that they were 'following orders'. Pictured are concentration camp prisoners as US troops liberate the Nazi concentration camp in Dachau, Germany, 30 April 1945

THE ORIGINAL EXPERIMENT

In Stanley Milgram’s research on obedience to authority, carried out in the 1960s and 1970s, volunteers found themselves cast in the role of a 'teacher' with the task of administering shocks of increasing magnitude to another man - the learner - every time he failed to recall a correct word.

Unbeknown to the 'teacher', the 'learner' was an actor, and the shocks were not real. But to Milgram’s and everyone else’s dismay, all participants proved willing to administer shocks of 300 volts and 65 per cent went all the way to 450 volts. This appeared to provide compelling evidence that normal well-adjusted men would be willing to kill a complete stranger simply because they were ordered to do so by an authority figure. Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment took these ideas further by exploring the destructive behaviour of groups of men over an extended period. Students were randomly assigned to be either guards or prisoners within a mock prison that had been constructed in the Stanford Psychology Department. In contrast to Milgram’s studies, the objective was to observe the interaction within and between the two groups in the absence of an obviously malevolent authority.

Once again, the results proved shocking - and the abuse handed out to the prisoners by the guards was so brutal that the study had to be terminated after just six days.

'Typically too, roles and orders were vague, and hence for those who wanted to advance the Nazi cause - and not all did - creativity and imagination were required in order to work towards the regime’s assumed goals and to overcome the challenges associated with any given task.'

'Emblematic of this, the practical details of ‘the final solution’ were not handed down from on high, but had to be elaborated by Eichmann himself. '



Today's understanding of the psychology of tyranny is dominated by two classic studies from the 60s and 70s: Stanley Milgram’s research on obedience to authority and Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment, which found people tended to simply follow orders.

But the new study of these findings, headed by Professor Reicher suggests zealousness is the key to such acts of violence.

Reicher and Haslam say that there is a 'believed morality' behind people’s actions.

Professor Reicher said: 'In short, people do harm not because they are unaware that they are doing wrong, but because they believe that they are doing right.

'The fundamental point is that tyranny does not flourish because perpetrators are helpless and ignorant of their actions.

'It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.

'It is this conviction that steels participants to do their dirty work and that makes them work energetically and creatively to ensure its success.