Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Cialdini describes the rapid growth of behavioral science studies as a series of efforts to solve various real-world problems. In describing certain experiments, he tells of a study in which a person called “a learner” and a person called “a teacher” work together to recall paired words. When the learner fails to get the words right, the teacher must administer an electric shock. An authority figure, who is a professor, instructs the teacher to increase these shocks. The learner complains about the pain and eventually begs for release. The shocks continue, with the teacher refusing to stop.

In “The Power of Authority Pressure,” Cialdini describes this scenario—shocking a volunteer—as sounding like a bad dream. He then relates that the experiment did not actually involve any shocks at all. The learner was an actor pretending to be shocked. The purpose of the experiment was to determine to what degree a subject would respond to an authority figure who tells them to inflict pain on an innocent person. To the surprise of the researchers, two thirds of the teachers went all the way to 450 volts. The researcher who conducted the study said this willingness resulted from a sense of duty to authority.