A recent article in Scientific American explains the biology of why people are so willing to follow orders:

Milgram’s research tackled whether a person could be coerced into behaving heinously, but new research released Thursday offers one explanation as to why.
In particular, acting under orders caused participants to perceive a distance from outcomes that they themselves caused, said study co-author Patrick Haggard, a cognitive neuroscientist at University College London, in an email.
In other words, people actually feel disconnected from their actions when they comply with orders, even though they’re the ones committing the act.
The study, published in the journal Current Biology, described this distance as people experiencing their actions more as passive movements than fully voluntary actions when they follow orders.

[Supp Dec 17 2025]

From Camus, reporting on Chase Hughes’ discussion with Joe Rogan.

“The most horrifying revelation in psychology: In Stanley Milgram’s 1960s obedience experiments, ordinary people—teachers, secretaries, engineers—sat trembling, sweating, and protesting as they believed they were delivering increasingly dangerous electric shocks to an innocent stranger who screamed in pain, begged to stop citing a heart condition, then fell deathly silent.

Yet, under the calm pressure of an authority figure in a lab coat saying “Please continue—the experiment requires it,” 65% went all the way to 450 volts (labeled “XXX Danger: Severe Shock”). No force, no threats—just authority in an unfamiliar setting.

Behavioral expert Chase Hughes calls this a masterclass in influence: novelty + perceived expertise can override our deepest moral instincts in under an hour, without any scripted “magic words.” It explains white coat syndrome, blind trust in experts, and why good people sometimes do unthinkable things.

The ethical cost was immense—participants left traumatized, forever questioning their own character—and it revolutionized research rules forever.”