The Milgram studies were a series of psychological studies conducted by Stanley Milgram begining in the 1950′s to determine the influence of authority on people’s willingness to commit acts that harm another human being. In
the post war period researchers were interested in how ordinary people had been able to commit atrocities in the authoritarian Nazi regime as a result of “obeying orders.” In a typical experiment, the subject would be asked to help to ‘teach’ another person (actually a confederate of those conducting the study) a task. The “teacher” and the “learner” were placed in separate rooms so that the
teacher could not see the learner, but could hear her or him over an intercom system. The teacher was then instructed to use a dial and switch to deliver an electric shock to the learner whenever the learner made an error. The researcher in the room, stereotypically wearing a white lab coat, used his or her (probably his) authority to instruct the teacher to gradually turn up the dial to increase the voltage and therefore the severity of the electric shock. If the teacher (test subject) showed reluctuance, the authority figure assured him or her that it was “okay,” thereby lifting the burdern of responsibility for causing suffering or harm away from the test subject and onto the authority figure. Researchers found that using this dynamic, some ordinary college students (though not all) were willing to inflict suffering to the point of agony and even the apparent unconsciousness or death of the “learner” (based on the screams and pleas to stop the experiment heard through the intercom), as long as the authority figure assumed the responsibility, by assuring the “teacher” that it was okay to continue.

This idea of “nonresponsibility,” the idea that something other than our own personal capacity for choice determines our actions, is closely linked to violence. Nonresponsibility comes into play when we fail to recognize our ability to disobey authority when obediene would violate individual conscience, or when we adhere to deterministic view of the universe where there is no such thing as choice. This is also closely related to the idea in psychology of internal versus external locus of control. The awareness that a person has that the choices they make affect their reality and outcomes is known as an “internal locus of control,” while the belief that outcomes are determined by external circumstances that are beyond our control is known as an external locus of control. Nonviolence effectively depends on an internal locus of control, as there can be no nonviolence without personal conscience and choice, such as the choice to disobey a harmful order, or the choice to overcome our “flight or fight” response to engage with a difficult situation creatively. Interestingly, human beings who have been raised in authoritarian, harshly punishing, and violent ways tend to have an external locus of control, which then predisposes them to overlook the choice for nonviolence.