How can people torture others

Original caption: 20 Jan , Da Nang, Vietnam. First Air Cavalrymen and a Vietnamese interpreter lay a towel over the face on an uncooperative Viet Cong suspect and then pour water on it. An ordinary person becomes a torturer with surprising ease. Most people assume that torturing another human being is something only a minority are capable of doing. Waterboarding requires the use of physical restraints — perhaps only after a physical struggle — unless the captive willingly submits to the process.

Slapping or hitting another person, imposing extremes of temperature, electrocuting them, requires active others who must grapple with, and perhaps subdue, the captive, imposing levels of physical contact that violate all norms of interpersonal interaction.

Torturing someone is not easy, and subjecting a fellow human being to torture is stressful for all but the most psychopathic. Once removed from the theatre of war and the camaraderie of the battalion, intense, enduring and disabling guilt, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse follow.

Suicide is not uncommon. What would it take for an ordinary person to torture someone else — perhaps electrocute them, even to the point of apparent death? In possibly the most famous experiments in social psychology, the late Stanley Milgram of Yale University investigated the conditions under which ordinary people would be willing to obey instructions from an authority figure to electrocute another person. The story of these experiments has often been told, but it is worth describing them again because they continue, more than 40 years on and many successful replications later, to retain their capacity to shock the conscience and illustrate how humans will bend to the demands of authority.

Milgram invited members of the public by advertisement to come to his laboratory to investigate the effects of punishment on learning and memory. Subjects were introduced to another participant and told this person was going to be electrocuted whenever they misremembered words they were meant to learn.

This other person — in fact, an actor who did not actually experience any pain or discomfort — was brought to a room and hooked up to what looked like a set of electric shock pads.

The actor was in communication via a two-way speaker with the subject, who was seated in a second room in front of a large box featuring a dial said to be capable of delivering electric shocks from 0 to volts. At various points around the dials, different dangers associated with particular shock levels were indicated.

The experimenter the authority figure was a scientist in a white coat, who gave instructions to the unwitting subject; that individual would apply the electric shock whenever the actor made an error, and the apparent distress of the actor would increase as the shock level increased. At the start of these experiments, Milgram had his experimental protocols reviewed. It was generally concluded that the vast majority of people would not go anywhere near the highest levels of shock: that they would desist from shocking the actor long before the maximum point on the dial was reached.

However, Milgram found that about two-thirds of test participants progressed all the way to the maximum shock. What is the lesson to be drawn from these experiments? There have been 18 successful replications of his original study between and , and several more recent replications, with a host of different variables worth examining in detail. Yet several results stand out: participants reported less anxiety and distress when the learner was of North African origin.

And participants who exhibited higher levels of right-wing authoritarianism and who showed higher levels of anger were more likely to show high levels of obedience as well. There was 81 per cent obedience in the standard condition, but only 28 per cent obedience in the host-withdrawal condition. The team further found two personality constructs moderately associated with obedience: agreeableness and conscientiousness.

These are dispositions that might indeed be necessary for willing or unwilling participation in a programme of coercive interrogation or torture. Of course, rebels are not usually selected by institutions to operate sensitive programmes: Edward Snowden is the exception, not the rule. People can override their moral compass when an authority figure is present and institutional circumstances demand it. Again, remarkable effects on behaviour were observed.

Those designated prison guards became, in many cases, very authoritarian, and their prisoners became passive. The experiment, which was supposed to last two weeks, had to be terminated after six days. The prison guards became abusive in certain instances, and began using wooden batons as symbols of status. They adopted mirrored sunglasses and clothing that simulated the clothes of a prison guard.

The prisoners, by contrast, were fitted in prison clothing, called by their numbers not their names, and wore ankle chains. Guards became sadistic in about one-third of cases. They harassed the prisoners, imposed protracted exercise as punishments on them, refused to allow them access to toilets, and would remove their mattresses.

These prisoners were, until a few days previously, fellow students and not guilty of any criminal offence. The scenario gave rise to what Zimbardo referred to as deindividualisation, in which people might define themselves with respect to their roles, not to themselves or their ethical standards as persons. These experiments emphasise the importance of institutional context as a driver for individual behaviour, and the extent to which an institutional context can cause people to override their individual and normal predispositions.

Such views might suggest that people have an internal moral compass and a set of moral attitudes, and that these will drive behaviour, almost irrespective of circumstance. The emerging position, however, is much more complex.

Individuals might have their own moral compass, but they are capable of overriding it and inflicting severe punishments on others when an authority figure is present and institutional circumstances demand it. Why is this? Humans are empathic beings. With certain exceptions, we are capable of simulating the internal states that other humans experience; imposing pain or stress on another human comes with a psychological cost to ourselves.

Those of us who are not psychopaths, have not been deindividuated, and are not acting on the instructions of a higher authority do, indeed, have a substantial capacity for sharing the experiences of another person — for empathy. Over the past 15 to 20 years, neuroscientists have made substantial strides in understanding the brain systems that are involved in empathy. What is the difference, for example, between experiencing pain yourself and watching pain in another human?

Tony Lagouranis stated that while he was actively interrogating detainees he first realized he went too far after looking to the Nazis for tips. Another former torturer, Eric Fair, described experiencing nightmares of the people he tortured. Another factor to consider is that abuse is cyclical.

This, combined with the unique challenges veterans face, contributes to the risk of domestic violence, or intimate partner violence. This begins with deployment and combat where veterans start to lose their sense of trust. There is, however, research into the effectiveness of torture. There is a two-step process in torture. Rather, psychological techniques, such as building rapport, have a higher chance of success in obtaining reliable, correct information. Considering the numerous negative effects of torture on torturers it is not worth the price to continue implementing torture techniques.

Especially when there is a high probability that information obtained from torture is unreliable. Rather, there are more benefits to implementing reliable, tested techniques and to adequately train interrogators. This will ensure the integrity of the interrogation.

She plans to work in criminal defense upon graduation. Washington Post Feb. How did recent torture techniques form? There is a moderate to large hereditary component to these traits. So some people may just be born this way. Alternatively, high D-factor parents could pass these traits onto their children by behaving abusively towards them.

Similarly, seeing others behave in high D-factor ways may teach us to act this way. We all have a role to play in reducing cruelty. Yet it is often said that dehumanising people is what allows us to be cruel. Potential victims are labelled as dogs, lice or cockroaches, allegedly making it easier for others to hurt them. There is something to this. Research shows that if someone breaks a social norm, our brains treat their faces as less human.

This makes it easier for us to punish people who violate norms of behaviour. It is also a dangerous delusion. The psychologist Paul Bloom argues our worst cruelties may rest on not dehumanising people. The Nazis dehumanised and murdered millions of people during the Holocaust at concentration camps Credit: Reuters.

For example, the Nazi Party dehumanised Jewish people by calling them vermin and lice. Yet the Nazis also humiliated, tortured and murdered Jews precisely because they saw them as humans who would be degraded and suffer from such treatment. Sometimes people will even harm the helpful. Imagine you are playing an economic game in which you and other players have the chance to invest in a group fund.

The more money is paid into it, the more it pays out. And the fund will pay out money to all players, whether they have invested or not. At the end of the game, you can pay to punish other players for how much they chose to invest. To do so, you give up some of your earnings and money is taken away from the player of your choice. In short, you can be spiteful. Some players chose to punish others who invested little or nothing in the group fund. Yet some will pay to punish players who invested more in the group fund than they did.

Such acts seem to make no sense. Generous players give you a greater pay-out — why would you dissuade them? It can be found around the world. In hunter-gatherer societies, successful hunters are criticised for catching a big animal even though their catch means everyone gets more meat.

Hillary Clinton may have suffered do-gooder derogation as a result of her rights-based US Presidential Election campaign. Do-gooder derogation exists because of our counter-dominant tendencies. A less generous player in the economic game above may feel that a more generous player will be seen by others as a preferable collaborator.

The more generous person is threatening to become dominant. As the French writer Voltaire put it, the best is the enemy of the good. Yet there is a hidden upside of do-gooder derogation. Once we have pulled down the do-gooder, we are more open to their message.

One study found that allowing people to express a dislike of vegetarians led them to become less supportive of eating meat. Shooting, crucifying or failing to elect the messenger may encourage their message to be accepted. In the film Whiplash, a music teacher uses cruelty to encourage greatness in one of his students. We may recoil at such tactics. Yet the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche thought we had become too averse to such cruelty.

Human history is marred with violence and cruelty against those who don't pose a threat Credit: Alamy. People could also be cruel to themselves to help become the person they wanted to be. Nietzsche felt suffering cruelty could help develop courage, endurance and creativity. Should we be more willing to make both others and ourselves suffer to develop virtue?