Obedience to authority is a vast discourse across many different people in different circumstances. The question is when disobedience is justified. Humans are wired to want to obey authority as exemplified in the classroom setting. A professor asks the students to complete a task and they typically obey even if the task seems odd. Another example is the public's trust in experts in scientific fields. People with degrees are seen as having some type of authority in society so people tend to listen when they inform them of things they aren't knowledgeable of. There are situations where obeying authority is unjustified such as when the authority figure in the workplace influences employment discrimination or a commanding officer in the military makes illegal demands of soldiers.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was developed when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ensure the integration of the workplace and reduce discrimination in the hiring process. Unfortunately, anti-discrimination laws haven't been as effective as expected. Employees will match their employers' behaviors when they're dedicated to their job which begs the question as to whether obedience to authority is justified. In the case of employment discrimination, it is not justified because not only is it against the law, but it also creates an unsafe environment for unfavorable demographics. From the Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society, "Disparate treatment means that an employer treats some people less favorable than others because of their race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, or disability" (Ware p. 447). The purpose of the study,"Employment Discrimination: Authority Figures' Demographic Preferences and Followers' Affective Organizational Commitment," was to determine whether organizational commitment has an effect on whether employees follow their superior's demographic biases. Affective organizational commitment is defined as employees who love working at their company, continue working there because they share the same values, and take pride in being part of it while organizational commitment motivates them to serve the company in ways they think is best. The researchers believe these employees are compliant with their bosses' instructions just because their bosses are in a position of authority. In order to avoid conflict and maintain organization, these committed employees will submit to them because they desire a positive relationship with the organization and its leaders. The submissiveness is about mediation between them and organizational authorities which makes employees follow in their discrimination.
Stage two of the study, named "The In-Basket Exercise", had the experimental group role play as teachers who needed to make a hiring decision. They were shown a description of the authorities' demographic preferences while the control group did not see them in order to determine whether the knowledge of those preferences would lead to discrimination in the hiring process. What this study shows is that workers who are dedicated to their organization are likely to be influenced by their superior's preferred demographics. This causes many problems as employers shouldn't be discriminating against anyone based on race, gender, or disability among other minorities because it is against the law to do so and victims then have reason to file a charge with the EEOC. These followers who partake in their leaders' discriminatory influences make a decision that is not condone no matter how committed they are to their organization.
Moreover, the soldiers who committed heinous crimes against humanity during World War II who claimed they were just following orders are not exculpated. Jumping into the psychology behind their actions, the research paper, 'What the Rule of Law Should Mean In Civics Education: From the Following Orders Defense to the Classroom." explains the dilemma of solders who must obey their superiors but also think independently to avoid the crimes of war. The internal conflict of soldiers told to conform and obey is the inevitable reprimanding from the law for following illegal orders or from their superiors for disobeying those orders. They discuss how students and young soldiers must learn to use their conscious to determine when to obey or disobey authority based on the soldiers from the Nuremberg Trials who abused the rights of others because they chose to carry out certain orders. This all ties into life as a civilian when the public conforms to prejudices, for example, it leads to atrocities. On the contrary, complete independence could lead to disorder.
Conformity is useful for organization but permits what psychologists refer to as groupthink. Groupthink is when a group with the same goals begin making irrational and sometimes even dangerous decisions. This phenomenon is apparent in soldiers in the military where complete conformity is required. The military is one of those circumstances that needs each member obeying orders for the purpose of survival. The judge who tried a multitude of German soldiers who murdered civilians stated, "The fact that a soldier may not, without incurring unfavorable consequences, refuse to drill, salute, exercise, reconnoiter, and even go into battle, does not mean he must fulfill every demand put to him" (Minow p. 141). These men must have been influenced by the need for conformity and the fear of the consequences for disobeying their superiors. Solomon Schachter teamed up with Solomon Asch who are both psychologists, to determine the pressures to conformity. They found two factors that accounted for the pressure which included the need for group cohesiveness and the issue's significance. Although there are these pressures to conform and risks for disobeying, a soldier cannot blindly follow demands. Not every soldier should be conscientious as that would cause disturbances, but they must do what is right even in the face of repercussions.
Lawrence Kohlberg, a psychologist who came up with the stages of moral development with influences by Jean Piaget, concluded that a solution for this dilemma would be for people to begin following the law and respecting other's freedoms. People who think this way are likely to protest immoral laws and soldiers would be likely to defy illegal demands. Kohlberg continues by saying young people should be exposed to "abstract moral dilemmas...and opportunities for self-governance in school" (Minow p. 146). This way, once students find their way into the military they can make better decisions.
Among many situations of obeying authority figures, the two where the obedience should not be pardoned is in employment discrimination and soldiers who commit war crimes based on the excuse of following orders. This is even more significant because it involves harm to other people and it can all be avoided if people were more conscientious during the right times. Many factors going into when and why someone obeys authority, but the point where it is unjustified is when it affects somebody else.
Works Cited
Levy, Sheldon G. "Conformity and Obedience." Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, edited by Lester R. Kurtz, Elsevier Science & Technology, 2nd edition, 2008. Credo Reference, http://libproxy.estrellamountain.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/estpeace/conformity_and_obedience/0?institutionld=5536. Accessed 10 Jul. 2018.
Minow, Martha. "What the Rule of Law Should Mean in Civics Education: From the 'Following Orders' Defence to the Classroom." Journal of Moral Education, vol. 35, no. 2, June 2006, pp. 137-162. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/03057240600711178.
Petersen, Lars-Eric and Jörg Dietz. "Employment Discrimination: Authority Figures' Demographic Preferences and Followers' Affective Organizational Commitment." Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 93, no. 6, Nov. 2008, pp. 1287-1300. EBSCOhost, libproxy.estrellamountain.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/loginaspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=35551815&site=ehost-live.
Ware, Leland. "Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)." Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. Richard T. Schaefer, ed. Vol. 1. SAGE Publications, 2008.