When Bad Decisions Happen to Good People – Part 2

In my last blog post, I discussed how time pressure can compromise our ability to make ethical decisions. This week's column will build on this theme by exploring another classic study that examines how our decision-making abilities can be affected by situational factors. By demonstrating the impact of these factors, I hope to provide an opportunity for personal reflection. This allows us to identify potential ethical pitfalls in our daily work lives so we are better prepared to recognize and manage them should they arise. The Milgram Experiment In this famous 1963 experiment, published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, participants were divided into two groups. One group was naive to the goal of the study (“teachers”) and one group acted as accomplices of the experimenters (“students”). At the outset of this experiment, the experimenter explained to the teacher and the student that they were volunteers in a study designed to explore the relationship between performance and punishment in the context of memory recall. Following this introduction, the experimenter told the participants that the role of teacher and student would be randomly assigned. Unbeknownst to the true participant, both slips of paper in the “random” draw were labelled “teacher”, which ensured the accomplice would always be the student. Once the roles were “assigned”, the teacher and student were put into adjacent rooms, and the student was strapped to a chair with an electrode attached to his wrist. Some paste was also applied to the student’s wrist and the teacher was told this was "to avoid blisters and burns”. The experimenter explained to the teacher that he would be required to read a word-pair question to the student to test his memory. After a brief pause, the teacher would say one of the words from the pair and provide the student with four alternatives from which to select the other word in the pair. If the student answered the question correctly, the teacher would proceed to the next question. If the student answered incorrectly, the teacher would be required to deliver an electric shock. With each incorrect answer, the teacher had to increase the intensity of the shock. To give the teacher some idea of the student pain level that he was about to administer, the teacher was administered a 45 volt shock by the experimenter, which in itself is painful. The last two levels were labelled “Danger: Severe Shock” (e.g., 420 volts) and “XXX” (e.g., 435 and 450 volts). Although there were no actual shocks delivered to the student, he was coached on the degree to which he should respond to each “shock”, ranging from mild moans/groans to yelps and even screams for help. At the beginning of the experiment, the student did relatively well in recalling the words correctly. However, by design, as time wore on, the student made more “mistakes,” which necessitated a voltage increase for each incorrect answer. As you can imagine, as the level of the shocks climbed higher and the pained reactions of the student intensified, the teachers became increasingly uncomfortable with the experiment. They expressed concern to the experimenter about ending the experiment and/or, at least, ending the administration of the shocks. The experimenters were given four different levels of responses to these objections to try and push the teacher to continue. These were: "Please continue”, "The experiment requires you to continue", "It is absolutely essential that you continue", and "You have no other choice. You must go on!" If the teacher still wished to discontinue following the fourth prompt, the experimenter would end the session. Otherwise, it would continue until the teacher had administered the maximum shock level three times. Overall, Milgram found that almost two-thirds (65%) of the teachers administered the shock to the maximum intensity (450 volts). These results are chilling and reveal the extent to which individual behaviour can be swayed under the guise of authority. Not surprisingly, Milgram concluded that obedience to authority was a very powerful human motivator and wrote extensively on his continued work in the area in his book Obedience to Authority. Application to a Business Context The Milgram experiment continues to be widely cited and countless replications have reproduced similar findings. Although unethical in its original form by today's standards, the results of this experiment have sparked spirited discussion about our innate tendencies and our capacity to be influenced by authority. When the results are generalized to a business context, they provide some insight into situations that may lead to unethical decisions being made by well-meaning individuals. Clearly, not all of the teachers in the Milgram experiment were “bad apples”, although many made ethically compromised decisions in the face of an authority figure -- in this case an experimenter in a lab coat. Translating this to a corporate environment has an even more sobering impact, considering that the authority figure is someone who has considerable control over your career path, and ultimately, your quality of life (both within the organization and without, if promotions and benefits, etc. are unfairly withheld). Clearly, this can cause extreme pressure to conform. Considering that two-thirds of Milgram's participants shocked people to the highest levels within the confines of a voluntary and artificial laboratory because of the prompts of an experimenter who they just met, it is important for each of us to pause and reflect on how vulnerable we might be to the pressures of management within our organizations. A strong tendency of human nature is to underestimate our capacity to make mistakes. Indeed, in their most recent and compelling book entitled Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do about It, Harvard scholars Max Bezerman and Ann Tenbrunsel present voluminous evidence that shows that what people feel they would do in a given situation rarely matches what they actually do when faced with that same situation. Evidence supporting this assertion can also be found in the Milgram experiment. Milgram surveyed a group of students before the experiment occurred and asked them to predict what percentage of people would administer the most severe shock possible to their “students”. At most, people felt that only 3% of the teachers would deliver the maximum voltage (the average was 1.2%). Considering that the actual result was 65%, this suggests that there is a large disparity between how we think we would behave and how we actually behave! Concluding Thoughts Bad decisions can happen to good people under the right circumstances. As such, awareness and preparation are crucial to avoid falling into similar traps. Whether it is time pressure or the demands of an authority figure, it is important to establish and preserve our ethical values and boundaries before the situation demands it. Just as we have difficulty predicting how we will behave in a certain situation, we can also struggle with creating boundaries in the midst of challenging circumstances. By being aware of potentially compromising situations and preparing a plan for when these occasions arise, we can guard ourselves against the pressure to turn the dial to the maximum voltage. Bad decisions can happen to good people, but they don’t have to.

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