Stanley Milgram Quotes About Authority

• The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.

  Stanley Milgram

  Leadership, Responsibility, Psychology

  Stanley Milgram (2017). “Obedience to Authority”, p.8, HarperCollins

• Each individual possesses a conscience which to a greater or lesser degree serves to restrain the unimpeded flow of impulses destructive to others. But when he merges his person into an organizational structure, a new creature replaces autonomous man, unhindered by the limitations of individual morality, freed of humane inhibition, mindful only of the sanctions of authority.

  Stanley Milgram

  Men, Flow, Degrees

  "Obedience to Authority : An Experimental View". Book by Stanley Milgram, p. 188, 1974.

• A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act, and without pangs of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority.

  Stanley Milgram

  Long, People, Authority

• Relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

  Stanley Milgram

  People, Authority, Resources

  Stanley Milgram (2017). “Obedience to Authority”, p.6, HarperCollins

• When an individual wishes to stand in opposition to authority, he does best to find support for his position from others in his group. The mutual support provided by men for each other is the strongest bulwark we have against the excesses of authority.

  Stanley Milgram

  Men, Mutual Support, Wish

  "Obedience to Authority : An Experimental View". Book by Stanley Milgram, p. 121, 1974.

• Obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose. It is the dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority.

  Stanley Milgram

  Men, Political, Purpose

  Stanley Milgram (2017). “Obedience to Authority”, p.1, HarperCollins

• Perhaps the challenge is to invent the political structure that will give conscience a better chance against authority.

  Stanley Milgram

  Giving, Political, Challenges

  Stanley Milgram (1992). “The Individual in a Social World: Essays and Experiments”, McGraw-Hill Humanities, Social Sciences & World Languages

• Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

  Stanley Milgram

  Jobs, People, Ordinary

  "The Perils of Obedience," Harper's Magazine, 1974.

• But the culture has failed, almost entirely, in inculcating internal controls on actions that have their origin in authority. For this reason, the latter constitutes a far greater danger to human survival.

  Stanley Milgram

  Survival, Culture, Action

• Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living, and it is only the man dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond, through defiance or submission, to the commands of others.

  Stanley Milgram

  Men, Dwelling, Isolation

  Stanley Milgram (2017). “Obedience to Authority”, p.1, HarperCollins

• Although a person acting under authority performs actions that seem to violate standards of conscience, it would not be true to say that he loses his moral sense. Instead, it acquires a radically different focus. He does not respond with a moral sentiment to the actions he performs. Rather, his moral concern now shifts to a consideration of how well he is living up to the expectations that the authority has of him.

  Stanley Milgram

  Expectations, Focus, Acting

• I started with the belief that every person who came to the laboratory was free to accept or to reject the dictates of authority. This view sustains a conception of human dignity insofar as it sees in each man a capacity for choosing his own behavior. And as it turned out, many subjects did, indeed, choose to reject the experimenter's commands, providing a powerful affirmation of human ideals.

  Stanley Milgram

  Powerful, Men, Views

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