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H. Thomas Hayden
recently concluded over 35 years of service,
which included the Agency for International
Development, the Marine Corps, defense industry
and the Pentagon. His specialties are Intelligence,
Counterinsurgency Operations, Counter-terrorism,
and Joint Concepts Development and Experimentation.
His Marine Corps assignments have included
command of two separate battalions; AC/S G-2,
4th MARDIV & AC/S G-2 FMFEurope; Branch Head,
HQMC, Special Operations and Low Intensity
Conflict (SO/LIC); Special Assistant to the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for SO/LIC;
and, Senior Program Analysts at HQMC with
the Joint Staff and DoD at the Pentagon. Overseas
assignments included Vietnam, Japan & Okinawa,
Europe, Central America, Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait, Somalia, Singapore, Philippines, and
Colombia. He has an MBA (Pepperdine) and an
MA in International Relations (University
of Southern California). He has written two
books and is working on a third.
Thomas
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September 7, 2004
[Have an opinion on this column? Sound off in the discussion
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The prisoner abuses at Abu
Ghraib Prison in Iraq
have been compared to a number of studies on the lessons in depravity,
peer pressure, and the power of authority. The question to be asked
is whether the abuse should be explained as expected behavior or
deviant behavior?
A number of famous experiments, by highly respected researchers
in the United States, have provided some interesting material for
the forthcoming criminal court martial proceedings and leadership
training in the military, e.g. the Milgram Experiment, the Stanford
Prison Experiment, Bandura's analysis of "moral disengagement,"
etc. These are classic research reports on how certain people react
when placed in positions of authority over others.
The Stanford Prison Experiment was a "simulation study of the psychology
of imprisonment." Dr. Philip Zimbardo, PhD in Psychology at Stanford
University and supervisor of the "Experiment," has published much
on related subjects and has a web site. Zimbardo endorses a "situationist
perspective" on the ways in which anti-social behavior by individuals
and the violence sanctioned by nations, is best understood. He has
conducted laboratory and field studies on de-individualization,
aggression, vandalism, and the Stanford Prison Experiment, along
with a process analysis of Milgram's obedience studies, and Bandura's
analysis of "moral disengagement."
Zimbardo claims that his situation approach and the body of research
demonstrate the under-recognized power of social situations to alter
the representations and behavior of individuals, groups and nations.
Stanley Milgram preformed a series of studies on "Obedience to
Authority" which began at Harvard where he was working on his PhD.
His initial research was started at Yale from 1961-1962. He did
a newspaper advertisement offering $4.50 for one hour's work (1962
wages), in which an individual would take part in a Psychology experiment
investigating memory and learning. There was a stern-looking researcher
in a white coat and a pleasant and friendly "volunteer" student.
The paid "teacher" would asked some questions of the student volunteer
and then apply "punishment" for answering incorrectly. Punishment
for wrong answers was to come from an electrical generator with
30 switches in 15-volt increments, each labeled with voltage up
to 450 volts. Additionally, each switch had a rating ranging from
"Slight Shock" to "Danger: Severe Shock."
Milgram found that 65% of his "teachers," ordinary residents of
New Haven, Connecticut, were willing to give very harmful electric
shock -- up to the maximum 450 volts -- to a crying and pitifully
protesting victim (the volunteer student), simply because a scientific
experiment authority commanded them to continue, in spite of the
fact that the victim did not deserve the severe punishment for just
a wrong answer. The victims were in fact very good actors who would
scream and demand to be let out of the experiment and received no
electrical shock.
Dr. Thomas Bass, who also has a web site, is an internationally
recognized social psychologist and recognized expert on "obedience
to authority," and has conducted much research on the legacy of
Stanley Milgram. He has created and taught a course on the social
psychology of Milgram.
Obedience to authority is a basic tenet of any human social organization
around the world. Virtually every society has developed some sort
of hierarchy in which some individuals or groups exercise authority
over others. However, all societies have established accepted rules
and behavior for proper social conduct.
Mr. William Saletan, on the "human nature" web site, May 12, 2004,
asks why the guards at Abu Ghraib -- unlike the guards at Stanford
-- went beyond humiliation to violence, severe, injury and rape?
He posits that the Stanford experiment dose not explain, or excuse,
the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
Saletan goes on to say that there are a number of variables that
were different at Abu Ghraib from Stanford and blames the personalities
of those involved, the racial difference and the poor supervision
of the American guards at Abu Ghraib.
There are no simple answers to the questions raised in this column.
Each individual soldier charged with criminal abuse at Abu Ghraib
will have to answer for his or her actions. However, on the face
of it, before considering the guilt and punishment for those charged,
there is a lot of research and investigation yet to be done.
Seven U.S. Army
soldiers have been criminally charged, and in the news, the media
reported it as the "biggest scandal" of the Iraq War.
It seems to me that the military has got it backwards. Senior officers
should be held accountable first and the full story needs to be
told before there is to be judgment of junior
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© 2004 H. Thomas Hayden. All opinions
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