Nice People Are More Likely to Follow Orders that Hurt Others

by Monica Joshi

People love being agreeable. Then, there are those who love it so much that they can just never say “no.” They may have just lost their ability to refuse any commands at all to the point where they might be capable of doing the most horrific things if they were actually ordered to do them.

A new psychology study published earlier this month in the Journal of Personality, has revealed this deep, dark, deadly new secret about the nicest, friendliest, and most agreeable people in our society. The experiment, based on Stanley Milgram's now famous 1961 experiment, further explores what kinds of people would go as far as they could simply because they were following orders.

In Milgram's famous experiment, he found that some people would even follow orders until the subject was dead. Although there was an actor faking the pain and even death, it gave a great insight into human nature, according to Milgram.

The new study concluded that:

“Those who are described as 'agreeable, conscientious personalities' are more likely to follow orders and deliver electric shocks that they believe can harm innocent people, while more contrarian, less agreeable personalities are more likely to refuse to hurt others.”

The experiment lasted over eight months. Researchers interviewed participants to gauge their social personalities, personal history, as well as their political leanings. They discovered that friendly people, or those who self-described as friendly, would follow orders to the T because they didn't want to upset anyone. On the other hand, unfriendly folk, or those who didn't get along with a lot of people, stuck to their beliefs. They also found that those with left-wing political views were less willing to hurt others.

The research delves into a deeper, more disturbing psychology, of those who aim to get along with everyone. They are, first off, far less likely to have a backbone — perhaps because of their years of training to not stand up for something. This stems from, perhaps, their unwillingness to sacrifice their popularity to act in a moral and just way toward others, be it people, or animals, or the environment in general.

Further research would need to be conducted on the ways in which, if the original experiment was conducted again and given our information age: Would we still be inclined to go all the way, to the fourth base (kidding!), to the death of the subject?