The Death of a Fraternity Pledge, Milgram on Authority, and Jump-starting a Car

There was a story in the November Atlantic about the death of a fraternity pledge after hazing . The article made me think about a lot of things (“Why do people do these things?” was one), but in particular I was reminded of Milgram’s famous experiments on authority. I’ll get to why in a moment.

In case you haven’t heard of the experiments, or need a reminder, Milgram wanted to investigate obedience to authority: how so many people could have done terrible things and claimed they were just “following orders”. So he brought people into a lab, one by one, introduced them to someone who was supposedly a fellow subject, and then had them test the other person on a list of words, administering increasing electric shocks for every wrong answer. Actually the other person, who was hidden in a booth, wasn’t getting shocks at all. It was just a recording that was answering. The recording would make a lot of mistakes, then start complaining that the shocks really hurt, insist on being released, protest that he had a heart condition, scream, then finally… silence. How far would the unknowing subject go in giving shocks, if the experimenter (in gray lab coat) were sitting nearby and insisting that the experiment must continue?

A whole lot farther than Milgram ever dreamed. Subjects might get very upset as their supposed partner started to complain, then scream, but when the experimenter (the authority) said to continue, most continued. Two-thirds continued all the way to silence.

Now on to the story of the pledge. I’ll keep it very brief. During hazing, a very intoxicated pledge opened the wrong door and fell down a flight of stairs. When he was retrieved, there was blood, apparent head injury, and other signs that he might be seriously injured. The members of the fraternity did not call 911 until twelve hours later, at which point he was unnaturally pale and cold and unresponsive—and even then they waited until they had tidied up a bit.

I’m not going to comment on the terrible things people do in order to cover their own rears. I want to make a different point. While the brothers were “attending” to him initially after his fall, another member came in, saw him, and got very worried. That member insisted they should call for help. He was quite literally pushed away by one of the others.

He was worried enough that he went to a higher authority, the vice president of the chapter, and told him what was happening. His concerns were dismissed and he was told that the other brothers knew what they were doing. And that, apparently, was that.

Now, I want to be clear. This guy is the closest thing to a hero in the entire sad episode. He recognized that the pledge was in danger and he tried to get the brothers in charge to call for help. When they wouldn’t, he went over their heads to someone with more authority. The police who reviewed the tapes (yes, most of what happened was caught on security cameras, no audio) apparently referred to him as the Good Samaritan.

But notice what he didn’t do. When appealing to two levels of authority didn’t get any action, he started to doubt that action was needed—even though he’d been sure enough after seeing the pledge that he went over his brothers’ heads. He didn’t call 911 himself.

Now granted, calling 911 would have been risky. If the pledge wasn’t actually in danger, he would no doubt have gotten his brothers in trouble for nothing (there was surely some underage drinking going on, at the very least.) 

But he had been trying to convince them to take that very risk a little while earlier. Instead, he let himself be persuaded that they must know what they were doing by someone who wasn’t even on the scene. He was a good guy, but in the end, he went along with the authority.

Now back to Milgram. I don’t know what Milgram’s subjects were actually thinking, but I imagine some of them may have thought, “This guy is in charge—this is his experiment. He must have taken precautions to ensure no one gets hurt. He wouldn’t let me continue if he thought there was any danger—would he?

“Would he?”

But enough of internal injuries and dangerous electric shocks. Let’s talk about something more ordinary, something a lot of people have experience with: jump-starting a car battery. 

The instructions in every manual and on every set of jumper cables tell you to attach the last clip to a metal part of the car, not to the battery. It’s a safety thing. There’s a small chance that vapor from the chemicals in the battery has been collecting above the battery and a nearby spark (such as might be caused by attaching the final clip to the battery) could ignite it. My husband always says never to attach the last clip to the battery.

But no one else I know takes that precaution. I was involved in a jump-start some years back (at least my car was) and the guy who was attaching the cables wanted to attach the last clip to the battery. I protested. He assured me he was a mechanic and had done this many times, … and I caved to his authority. I caved despite having read the instructions clearly printed on the jumper cables, despite having heard my husband tell me repeatedly that the last clip should go on a metal part of the car, and despite the fact that I had absolutely no evidence either that he was a good mechanic or a safety-conscious one.

It’s really hard to resist a (supposed) authority.

Till next post.

[Quick side note: there is less and less metal available to which you can attach the last clip. After the incident with the mechanic, I promised myself I would be firm next time. So the next time I helped someone jump-start her car, I insisted on doing it correctly and we were unable to get the car started, despite trying the clip in several locations. Later she got someone else to help. They attached it to the battery the way you aren’t supposed to do, and her car started right away.]