ArticleScientific reports2023
Conflict experience and resolution underlying obedience to authority.
Article in Scientific reports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- The effect of experimenter identification on (dis)obedience and its mechanisms.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- On dueling multi-act arithmetic: exploring the dynamics of goal-driven competition on engagement and cognition.Experimental brain research · 2025Article
- Doubting the power of prestige: obedience to authority beyond institutional and research justifications.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- A cross-cultural EEG study of how obedience and conformity influence reconciliation intentions.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Becoming a teacher can reduce obedience compared to being solely an examiner. Agentic state and obedience in the Milgram paradigm.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Neuro-cognitive specificities in prosocial disobedience: A comparative fMRI study of civilian and military populations.PloS one · 2025Article
- When the brain says "No!": An MRI study on the neural correlates of resistance to immoral orders.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Definitions of obedience require the experience of conflict in response to an authority's demands. Nevertheless, we know little about this conflict and its resolution. Two experiments tested the suitability of the 'object-destruction paradigm' for the study of conflict in obedience. An experimenter instructed participants to shred bugs (among other objects) in a manipulated coffee grinder. In contrast to the demand condition, participants in the control condition were reminded of their free choice. Both received several prods if they defied the experimenter. Results show that participants were more willing to kill bugs in the demand condition. Self-reported negative affect was increased after instructions to destroy bugs relative to other objects (Experiments 1 and 2). In Experiment 2, compliant participants additionally showed an increase in tonic skin conductance and, crucially, self-reported more agency and responsibility after alleged bug-destruction. These findings elucidate the conflict experience and resolution underlying obedience. Implications for prominent explanations (agentic shift, engaged followership) are discussed.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.