Behavior-analytic accounts of rule-adherence behavior suggest that rule-governance is a general class of functional (i.e., instrumental) behavior maintained by social consequences (Baum, 2005; Malott & Suarez, 2004; Jacobs et al., in prep.). Evolutionary Life-History (LH) theory suggests that LH strategy may underlie variation in rule-adherence behavior. Based on an integration of these two theories, a theoretical structural model of rule-governance was developed and tested. The structure of this model was used to develop follow-up experiments to test particularly salient links in the model. Consistent with theory, the structural model indicated that slow LH strategy directly and indirectly (through increased moral emotions and increased executive functioning) contributed to strength of rule-governance. Two experiments failed to replicate previously demonstrated effects of executive function depletion or moral identity priming (on moral behavioral outcome measures). Further, self-report measures of slow LH strategy, executive functioning, and rule-governance did not predict prosocial (donating) or rule-defiance (cheating) behavior in laboratory tasks. The limitations of relying solely on either self-report or behavioral tasks of unknown external validity are discussed.

Dans les expériences de Milgram sur la soumission à l’autorité (Milgram, 1963, 1965, 1974), les participants se sont vus ordonner d’administrer une série de chocs électriques d’intensité croissante à un autre participant (en réalité compère de l’expérimentateur) au nom d’une étude sur les effets de la punition sur l’apprentissage. Les résultats montrent que 62.5% des participants ont été jusqu’à infliger plusieurs chocs potentiellement mortels (condition standard ; Milgram, 1974). Ces résultats ont suscité un fort intérêt et sont toujours largement cités pour expliquer certains comportements destructeurs comme les actes de torture et de barbarie. Mais les travaux de Milgram ont également provoqué une forte controverse éthique et toute possibilité de réplication a été rapidement proscrite. Dans ce contexte, peu d’études expérimentales ont été réalisées et la question des mécanismes responsables de l’obéissance destructrice (OD) demeure sans réponse. La recherche récente a pu relancer l’étude expérimentale de l’OD par l’usage d’environnements immersifs. Ainsi, une récente étude IRMf reposant sur l’utilisation d’une version virtuelle du paradigme de Milgram montre que l’observation de la douleur de la victime dans ce contexte provoque un état de détresse personnelle chez les participants (i.e., réaction émotionnelle aversive centrée sur soi). Ce résultat suggère que l’OD pourrait être en partie la conséquence d’un défaut de régulation de la détresse provoquée par les mécanismes de résonance empathique. En nous appuyant sur la recherche récente en neurosciences sociales, nous avons fait l’hypothèse que la vulnérabilité au stress pourrait faciliter l’OD via l’exercice d’un contrôle inhibiteur sur la résonance empathique responsable d’une diminution de l’aversion pour l’atteinte à autrui. Nous avons réalisé six expériences visant (i) à examiner l’influence du tonus vagal (biomarqueur de la vulnérabilité au stress) sur l’autoritarisme de droite (prédicteur classique de l’OD) et sur l’OD, (ii) à manipuler expérimentalement la capacité des participants à exercer un contrôle inhibiteur durant la procédure d’obéissance, (iii) à explorer la relation entre ondes thêta (biomarqueur du contrôle inhibiteur) et OD, (iv) à examiner la relation entre OD et activité hémodynamique au niveau du cortex préfrontal ventromédian (incluant le cortex orbitofrontal) et du cortex préfrontal dorsolatéral, régions cérébrales fortement impliquées dans l’empathie et la cognition morale. L’obéissance a été mesurée à l’aide de l’« Immersive Video Milgram Obedience Experiment ». Dans ce qu’ils ont d’essentiel, nos résultats montrent : (i) qu’un moindre tonus vagal prédit l’autoritarisme de droite et l’OD, et que les participants obéissants ont exercé un effort cognitif couplé à une diminution du stress physiologique durant la procédure d’obéissance (études 2 et 3), (ii) que l’affaiblissement expérimental du contrôle inhibiteur via l’induction d’une « fatigue mentale » favorise la désobéissance et supprime l’influence de l’autoritarisme de droite sur l’OD (étude 4), (iii) qu’une augmentation de la puissance des ondes thêta prédit l’OD (étude 5), (iv) qu’une augmentation de l’oxy-hémoglobine au niveau du cortex préfrontal ventromédian droit prédit une moindre obéissance (étude 6). Dans leur ensemble, ces résultats supportent l’hypothèse voulant que les personnes présentant une plus grande vulnérabilité au stress exercent un contrôle inhibiteur sur leur résonance empathique dans un effort pour diminuer leur détresse, et que ce contrôle inhibiteur a pour conséquence une diminution des réponses émotionnelles aversives à l’atteinte à autrui et ainsi une augmentation de l’OD. / In the Milgram's obedience experiments (Milgram, 1963, 1965, 1974), naive participants were ordered to administer increasingly severe electric shocks on a “learner” (a confederate) after being told that they were participating in an experiment on the effects of punishment on learning. Results revealed that 62.5% of the participants were willing to administer allegedly lethal electric shocks when ordered to do so (standard condition; Milgram, 1974). The Milgram's findings are still often cited when explaining destructive behaviors such as torture. The Milgram’s obedience studies have also been a target of ethical criticism and replication has been discouraged. In such a context, a very few experimental studies has been conducted since the Milgram’s experiments and the mechanisms responsible for destructive obedience remain unknown. Recent research reopens the door to direct empirical study of destructive obedience through the employment of immersive environments. A recent fMRI study showed that pain-related affective sharing in a virtual version of the Milgram paradigm elicited an aversive, self-oriented state of personal distress. This result suggests that low self-regulatory control of the shared affect evoked by the victim’s pain could be responsible for destructive obedience. Based on recent social neuroscience research, we hypothesized that stress vulnerability may facilitate destructive obedience through a mechanism of inhibitory control over empathic resonance responsible for decreased harm aversion. We conducted six studies aiming (i) to explore the influence of cardiac vagal tone (a biomarker of stress vulnerability) on right-wing authoritarianism (RWA, a classic predictor of destructive obedience) and on destructive obedience, (ii) to induce a self-regulatory fatigue in order to manipulate the participants’ abilities for inhibitory control during the obedience procedure, (iii) to explore the relation between theta oscillations (a biomarker of inhibitory control) and destructive obedience, (iv) to examine the relation between destructive obedience and hemodynamic response in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (including the orbitofrontal cortex) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, two brain areas highly involved in empathy and moral cognition. Obedience was measured using the “Immersive Video Milgram Obedience Experiment”. All in all, our results showed: (i) that lower vagal tone predicted higher RWA and destructive obedience, and that obedient participants exerted a cognitive effort associated to decreased physiological arousal (studies 2 and 3), (ii) that self-regulatory fatigue reduced destructive obedience and suppressed the influence of RWA, (iii) that increased theta power predicted destructive obedience (study 4), (iv) that increased oxygenated-hemoglobin in the right ventromedial prefrontal cortex predicts disobedience. On the whole, these results support the hypothesis that individuals with high in stress vulnerability exert an inhibitory control over their empathic resonance in an attempt to reduce their own distress, and that such a mechanism is responsible for decreased harm aversion and then destructive obedience.

This study examines the phenomenon of abusive violence (AV) in the context of the American Post-9/11 Counter-terrorism and Counter-insurgency campaigns. Previous research into atrocities by states and their agents has largely come from examinations of totalitarian regimes with well-developed torture and assassination institutions. The mechanisms influencing willingness to do harm have been examined in experimental studies of obedience to authority and the influences of deindividuation, dehumanization, context and system. This study used Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to examine the lived experience of AV reported by fourteen American military and intelligence veterans. Participants were AV observers, objectors, or abusers. Subjects described why AV appeared sensible at the time, how methods of violence were selected, and what sense they made of their experiences after the fact. Accounts revealed the roles that frustration, fear, anger and mission pressure played to prompt acts of AV that ranged from the petty to heinous. Much of the AV was tied to a shift in mission view from macro strategic aims of CT and COIN to individual and small group survival. Routine hazing punishment soldiers received involving forced exercise and stress positions made similar acts inflicted on detainees unrecognizable as abusive. Overt and implied permissiveness from military superiors enabled AV extending to torture, and extra-judicial killings. Attempting to overcome feelings of vulnerability, powerlessness and rage, subjects enacted communal punishment through indiscriminate beatings and shooting. Participants committed AV to amuse themselves and humiliate their enemies; some killed detainees to force confessions from others, conceal misdeeds, and avoid routine paperwork. Participants realized that AV practices were unnecessary, counter-productive, and self-damaging. Several reduced or halted their AV as a result. The lived experience of AV left most respondents feeling guilt, shame, and inadequacy, whether they committed abuse or failed to stop it.