European Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 16, 311-324 (1986) Administrative Obedience: Carrying Out Orders to use Psychological-Administrative Violence WIM H. J. MEEUS and QUINTEN A. W RAAIJMAKERS Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands Abstract A paradigm named 'administrative obedience' was designed to study obedience in carrying out orders to use a kind of violence that is typical for our times, namely psychological-administrative violence resulting in definite harm. In this study, the victim was an applicant for a job, who came to the laboratory to take a test. This test would determine whether or not he would get the job. Subjects were ordered, in the context of a research project, to make the applicant nervous and to disturb him during the test; consequently, the applicant failed the test and remained unemployed. More than 90 per cent of the subjects carried out these orders, although they considered them unfair and did not enjoy doing the task. The level of administrative obedience found in our study is higher than the level of obedience found in the comparable experiment by Milgram. The experimental conditions 'Experimenter absent' and 'Two peers rebel' produced a reduction of obedience in our paradigm comparable to that which occurred in Milgram's paradigm. INTRODUCTION In his well-known experiments, Milgram (1974) demonstrated that obedience to authority is extreme. Sixty-five per cent of his subjects was prepared to administer shocks of up to 450 volts to the victim, in compliance with the instructions given by a scientific authority. This article is based on portions of the authors' dissertation (chapters 2 and 8). This dissertation was submitted to the University of Utrecht in October 1984. The supervision of Pieter Span and Willem Doise is gratefully acknowledged. Requests for reprints should be sent to Wim Meeus, Faculty of Social Sciences, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht, the Netherlands. 0046-2772/86/040311-14 $07.00 @1986 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 13 May 1985 Accepted 25 November 1985
312 W. H. J. Meeus and Q. A. W. Raaijmakers The experiments by Milgram have not been repeated frequently. Nevertheless, there are indications that obedience, as embodied in Milgram's paradigm, is a consistent and crosscultural phenomenon, that is relatively stable in time. In a number of replications of Milgram's baseline condition, a level of obedience similar to that of the original study was found for various groups in the United States (Bock, 1972; Bock and Warren, 1972; Burley and McGuiness, 1977; Costanzo, 1977; Holland, 1969; Rosenhan, 1969; Rosenhan and Mantell, 1967), in Jordan (Shanab and Yahya, 1977, 1978), in Spain (Miranda, Caballero, Gomez and Zamorano, 1981) and in the Federal Republic of Germany (Mantell, 1971). Also, a comparable level of obedience may be deduced from the studies by Ancona and Pareyson (1971-1972) and Kilham and Mann (1974) in Italy and Australia respectively. Notwithstanding these consistent results, there has been much criticism of Milgram's paradigm of obedience, particularly regarding the credibility of his experimental design. Milgram (1972, p. 141) has refuted this criticism convincingly.