In July 1961, Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann stood trial in Jerusalem and claimed that he should not be held culpable for his own actions because he was “just following orders”. Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, became intensely interested in whether this was a legitimate claim. Thus, the renowned Milgram Experiment was born.
In this experiment, two participants came into the lab and were told they were participating in a study about memory. They were randomly assigned roles – one became the teacher and the other became the learner – and they were sent into separate rooms. The experimenter told the teacher to give prompts, and if the learner answered incorrectly, the teacher was to administer a small electric shock. The more incorrect answers the learner gave, the more the voltage of the shock increased. The more the voltage increased, the louder and more intensely the learner protested. The maximum electric shock given was 450 volts. (For context, a wall outlet delivers an electrical shock of about 100 volts.) If the teacher expressed reservations, the experimenter urged them to continue with the experiment.
But here’s the hitch: this experiment wasn’t about memory at all. The learner did not actually receive any electric shocks. The “learner” was an actor, and the purpose of the experiment was to figure out how much the “teacher” would bring harm to a stranger, when urged by an authority figure.
And the results were harrowing: 65% of participants administered the final 450 voltage shock. Every single participant in the experiment made it to 300 volts.
We are taught to conform
Brene Brown talks about the difference between belonging and fitting in. When you “belong”, you have found people who value the attributes you bring to the table. When you “fit in”, it means you’ve bent yourself into a pretzel trying to blend into some pre-determined mold. And while belonging is what we’re all after, so many of us are taught is that fitting in is the key to success.
Let’s look at another, less harrowing experiment: the Asch experiment. In the 1950s, Solomon Asch showed a group of participants a picture of a line, followed by a picture of three lines of different lengths. The question he posed was, “which of the lines in the second picture is the same as the length of the first line?” The correct answer was pretty clear, but when a group of actors posing as other subjects gave the wrong answer (B, for example, when the correct response was clearly C), the actual study participant also gave the wrong answer 75% of the time.
In other words, no one likes to look stupid, and swimming upstream is hard.
I’ve experienced this sensation personally, and maybe you have too. Have you ever been to a group interview? I’ve had a few – one for my first job, when I was still in high school, and another for my Masters Degree program. Both times, at very different stages of my life, the interviewer posed a question, and I thought of my answer… but as I listened to the people around me give their answers, I thought, “well that sounds better than what I was going to say – maybe I should say something similar.”
Blending in is easy. Standing out is hard.
Why questioning authority is important
A few months ago, I wrote about pet grief, in the context of an experience I had with my cat’s severe negative reaction to anesthesia. (For anyone who’s worried, Lily is still blind, but she’s made an extraordinary recovery and is happily walking around the house.) What I didn’t write about was how badly I wished I had asked more questions when the veterinarian told me she needed anesthesia – things like:
- What are the risks of doing this procedure?
- What are the risks of not doing this procedure?
- Is this procedure something we could do later, if it seems more indicated at that point?
Maybe I would have made the same choice… but maybe I wouldn’t have. At very least, I would have felt informed.
And I’ve heard a lot of people with similar stories – not necessarily about their pets, but about their own medical care, or their child’s education, or even their car repairs! We encounter so many people, in the course of a day, who are educated about things we’re not, and we make dozens of micro-decisions about whether to put blind faith in them.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t trust these people. Your doctor and your child’s teacher and your auto mechanic have a lot of education that you don’t have. BUT – it never hurts to ask these people to explain what they’re doing and why. And if it doesn’t make sense, get a second opinion, or keep asking “why” until it does make sense.
Why questioning authority is hard
Aside from being taught to try to fit in, there are many other reasons that questioning authority can be really challenging.
1. We don’t like confrontation
In a perfect world, professionals would respond to the question, “why are you doing such-and-such?”, respectfully posed, with a calm explanation. But that’s not always what happens.
I once knew someone whose father died because, in the hospital after a heart attack, the doctors mixed up his file with someone else’s and took him off all of his medication. When his wife said to the doctor, “are you sure it’s a good idea to take him off his medication so soon?”, the doctor replied, “Lady, do you think you know more about medicine than I do?”
This is an extreme example, but some professionals bristle when asked questions. (If you have a choice, this kind of defensiveness is also a good sign that perhaps you want to take your business elsewhere.) Most of us don’t love confrontations, and so we may end up deferring to the expertise of an authority figure.
2. We fear looking stupid
…or not understanding the answers we’re given!
I may say to my auto mechanic, “I brought my car in for an oil change, but you’re telling me I need an expensive transmission service – can you please explain to me why I need that and what it does?”
And then the auto mechanic responds with, “well you see, your carburetor is interacting with the starter fluid in a way that’s impacted the efficacy of your transmission, so the fix here is to run some test oil through the transmission router, look at the results, and see what that says about the health of your car on a whole. Depending on how that looks, we may need to service the knobs and cords on the transmission in addition to changing the fluid… and then from there, you should be good to go. You don’t need to do this today, but if you don’t do it soon, the transmission plugs could have a negative interaction with the car battery and the whole undercarriage might burst into flames while you’re driving down the 101. But it’s completely up to you!”
All of the above is gibberish, highly inaccurate, and probably somewhat meaningless. I know nothing about cars.
…But that’s kind of the point isn’t it? The words I just wrote don’t mean anything, but if they did, I would still have no idea what they meant.
So let’s say I was given an answer like the above. I then have a choice. I can either:
- Narrow my eyes, nod thoughtfully, pretend to understand, and say, “yep, based on my thorough understanding of what you just said and my extensive knowledge of cars, that all sounds important – let’s do it.”
- Seek a second opinion.
- Start to break it down and spend half an hour asking questions like, “okay, let’s start at the beginning… what does it mean that the carburetor is interacting with the starter fluid?”
Most people would probably do the first one – both for the sake of brevity, and out of fear of exposing their own ignorance.
3. Questioning authority is time consuming.
For most adults, life is a game of triage. There aren’t enough hours in the day to juggle work, family, friendships, and other responsibilities – and the “to do” list never gets any shorter.
So when you hit a snag that requires you to interact with a professional or authority figure and ask a lot of questions, it can feel like a frustrating interruption in a delicately balanced or perfectly planned regimen. I’m intimately familiar with the sensation of having one very mature adult voice in my head saying, “the best thing to do here would be to get a second opinion,” followed immediately by a whiny child voice saying, “but I’m sooooooo busy, and I don’t wanna!” And honestly, sometimes the child voice wins.
Maybe for you, it’s not a child voice, but a calendar-wielding taskmaster voice saying, “do you really have the time for this?”
So the question to ask yourself is, “what are the stakes here?” If you’re at the car mechanic and they’re asking if you’d like a $200 service, and the money isn’t going to make or break you, maybe you let the child or taskmaster win. But if you’re at the doctor, and they’re telling you they need to do an exploratory and potentially risky surgery to find out if the mass they found is cancerous… maybe you listen to the mature adult voice, put your schedule on hold, and ask some questions or get a second opinion.
When not to question authority
I would be remiss in this article to not note the role that privilege plays in questioning authority. Safety has to come first, and if you’re a member of a marginalized group, this may be your primary consideration. So there may be times when questioning authority takes a back burner to making sure you don’t come to any harm.
Furthermore, when you do question authority, your demographics may play a significant role in how seriously the authority figure takes you, and how they respond to you. This may mean that you need to pick your battles because, very reasonably, you have a limited well of energy. This is 100% okay to do.
How to begin questioning authority
If you do decide to question authority, the best approach is to be kind and curious rather than aggressive. I’ve written extensively about assertiveness, and it may be helpful to read a few of those articles so that you don’t go in swinging. While being passive can result in your making uninformed opinions and being overly deferential, being too aggressive can make someone defensive.
So instead of, “I think you’re trying to take advantage of me,” say, “can you please explain this to me?” And keep asking for a further explanation until what you’re being told makes sense. Just because you’ve asked a question and the other person has tried to explain does NOT mean you have to be finished with the conversation. If something is “niggling” at you, and you feel like you’re trying to fill in the blanks, you can say, “So my understanding of what you just said is ___, but I still don’t understand why ___ is the best course of action.”
And if the person doesn’t give you satisfying answers, or becomes frustrated or rude – maybe it’s time to seek services elsewhere, if you’re able. It’s true that professionals are hired and compensated for their expertise, but bedside manner (or carside manner, or deskside manner) is part of their job.