“Obviously not!” is what you are thinking, if you’ve never heard of the Milgram Experiment. But if you knew about the Milgram experiment, you wouldn’t be so sure.
Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted a study focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. He examined justifications for acts of genocide offered by those accused at the World War II, Nuremberg War Criminal trials. Their defense often was based on “obedience” – – that they were just following orders of their superiors. In the experiment, so-called “teachers” (who were actually the unknowing subjects of the experiment) were recruited by Milgram. They were asked administer an electric shock of increasing intensity to a “learner” for each mistake he made during the experiment. The fictitious story given to these “teachers” was that the experiment was exploring effects of punishment (for incorrect responses) on learning behavior. The “teacher” was not aware that the “learner” in the study was actually an actor – – merely indicating discomfort as the “teacher” increased the electric shocks.
When the “teacher” asked whether increased shocks should be given he/she was verbally encouraged to continue. Sixty percent of the “teachers” obeyed orders to punish the learner to the very end of the 450-volt scale! No subject stopped before reaching 300 volts!
Read the whole wikipedia page on this topic. It is very interesting. Especially the variations on the experiments. And the effect on the subjects.
And then there is this video on YouTube (part 1, and part 2) of one session of the experiment. It is horrifying.
Milgram Experiment video – Part 1
Milgram Experiment video – Part 2