What happens in a submissive brain?
Cognitive neuroscience research on human command follower behavior
A Scientific Answer to the 'Banity of Evil'

Those who participated in genocide or state violence all say during their trials that they were “just following orders.”
Were they truly just following orders? And can simply following orders actually lead humans to commit unjust and cruel acts? "Just Following Orders!?: The Obeying Brain, the Resisting Brain" by cognitive neuroscientist Emily A.
This book reveals the cognitive neurological processes that occur in the brains of those who follow orders, in order to understand the root of human behavior that obeys authority.
The author analyzes extensive social, psychological, and cognitive neuroscience data, along with his own research exploring the mechanisms of obedience, to provide a comprehensive understanding of genocide and collective violence.
It is particularly impressive that he visited Rwanda and Cambodia, where genocides occurred, interviewed the actual perpetrators of the massacres, and synthesized the results with his experiments.
Moreover, the book uses this information to explore ways to prevent our society from becoming tainted by collective violence.

The shocking truth is that the perpetrators are not so different from us.
For example, past studies have not found that jihadists who plan terrorist attacks have mental health problems.11 In fact, most of them are educated, married, and have children.
Although they felt lonely and isolated and were willing to participate in the movements of groups that shared values ​​strongly connected to them, they did not suffer from mental illness.
Hannah Arendt, the renowned political philosopher and survivor of the Nazi genocide, had already concluded that Adolf Eichmann, one of the Nazis' chief planners, was not a monster.
Rather, he was seen as a bureaucratic clown who served the Führer and shared his ideology.
Jewish survivor Elie Wiesel said:
“The devil is that they were not devils.”
---p.39 From “Introduction, Conducting Interviews as a Research Methodology”

In fact, Milgram's study results were somewhat different from these kinds of self-predicted results.
There were 40 people who participated in Milgram's groundbreaking experiment.
Sixty-five percent of them applied the maximum voltage despite the learners screaming and pleading to stop the experiment.
What's important is that none of the participants asked to stop before the 300-volt shock intensity.
These results raise important questions.
Why did the participants obey? Why would a normal person inflict painful and even fatal electric shocks on another participant?

Milgram tried to explain the level of obedience he achieved through his research.
He explained that when people follow the experimenter's orders, they transfer their agency and responsibility to the experimenter.
They become 'thoughtless agents of action' and enter an 'agentic state'.
---p.119 From “Chapter 2 A Brief History of Experimental Research on Obedience, Milgram’s Obedience Experiment”

We observed that when following a command, subjects perceived the interval between the action and the tone to be longer than when they freely chose the action.
Participants actually reported that the interval between their action and the subsequent beep in the coercive condition was longer than the interval in the free-choice condition.
These results suggest that participants felt less agency over the outcomes of their actions when they were told what to do than when they made their own decisions.
Furthermore, this approach reduced the possibility that these results were influenced by social desirability, as participants were unable to link the time interval estimation task with their assessments of their own agency.

At first, this result really surprised us, because in both cases, whether people decided freely or were directed, they were the agents of their own actions.
There was no doubt who pressed the button, and the experiment did not use any brain stimulation technology to make them press the key.
Participants were simply told whether to shock the 'victim' or not.
In other words, all you had to do was execute the actions associated with the command.
---p.178-179 From “Chapter 3: How do we take ownership and responsibility for our actions? Neural sources of reduced subjectivity and responsibility in obedience situations”

The limbic system, commonly called the emotional brain, is a subcortical structure deep within the brain.
It is mainly related to emotions, emotional states, and behavioral patterns.
Research shows that witnessing another person's pain does not activate the entire pain processing system, but rather only a part of it, the limbic system, which plays a particularly important role.
This means that witnessing another person in pain does not actually cause a feeling of sensory pain, but rather an emotional and affective feeling of that pain.
In other words, you don't physically feel another person's pain, but you emotionally process and understand it.
---p.194-195 From “Chapter 4 Moral Emotions When Obeying, The Brain Is Set Up to Feel Empathy”

What's interesting is that everyone can modulate their empathy for the suffering of others.
In 2022, we conducted two studies in which participants were asked to simply watch pictures of painful or non-painful stimuli on a screen.
We recorded their brain activity with electroencephalography (EEG) and, as expected, observed that the brain processed painful and non-painful stimuli differently.
We also asked our participants to make two additional efforts.
First, in one condition, they were asked to develop empathy and feel more of the suffering of the person in the picture.
In another condition, participants were asked to lower their empathy and perceive the same painful stimulus as less painful.
The results were truly intriguing, as people were able to successfully modulate their neural responses to the suffering of the person in the picture.
---p.209-210 From “Chapter 4 Moral Emotions, Increased Aggression, Decreased Empathy, and Empathy Regulation When Obeying”

For example, some leaders prioritize their own interests over the interests of the society they lead, and thus make decisions that benefit themselves.
Some leaders feel pressured by powerful interest groups and lobbyists to influence decisions in their own interests.
Additionally, some leaders may lack a thorough understanding of the issues they are addressing and may make decisions without adequately considering the long-term impact on their citizens.

In such cases, leaders can use a self-regulating mechanism called moral disengagement to commit illegal acts without a guilty conscience.
Moral disengagement involves reframing one's actions to make them seem less harmful, to reduce awareness of the harm they cause others, or to minimize one's own responsibility.
---p.241-242 “Chapter 5 When giving an order, what happens in the commander’s brain?

It is noteworthy that the commanders with the lowest sense of agency when giving orders scored highest on the scale measuring psychopathic traits.
That is, psychopathic traits appear to increase the risk that people will not feel a sense of agency (and therefore responsibility) when giving orders.
This is particularly concerning given that past research has shown that psychopathic traits are very common among leaders in business and other fields.
(…) Taken together, these results suggest that when someone lacks agency or responsibility for their own actions, they may act more harmfully toward others.
---p.259-260 From “Chapter 5: When giving orders, the brain of the commander and the intermediary”

Therefore, soldiers must refuse unlawful orders, but must obey immoral orders to avoid being court-martialed.
Soldiers are often faced with very difficult tasks that require them to act against their own moral values ​​because their job means following given orders.

The concept of 'moral injury' occurs in military veterans or those still serving in the military who witness or commit acts that violate moral values.
---p.283-284 From “Chapter 6: Desolation is Everywhere: The Moral Consequences of War”

Conflict is contagious.
It is deeply rooted in human nature to retaliate when someone hurts us.
However, revenge can also increase the risk of developing PTSD symptoms in the long term.
This desire for revenge can become even more intense when justice is not served.
For example, after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, citizens learned that past perpetrators had not been brought to justice and, in many cases, still held high government positions.
As everything around me became devastated, feelings of revenge often arose.
The presence of revenge creates the possibility that conflicts will continue across generations.
This increases the likelihood of new conflicts with similarly serious consequences.
It seems like an endless vicious cycle.
---p.303-304 From “Chapter 6: Desolation is Everywhere, War, Trauma, Conflict, War, Trauma, Conflict: An Endless Cycle”

Since the Orliners' landmark study, many researchers have sought to identify specific traits associated with rescue operations during war and genocide.
In a 2007 study, researchers observed that rescuers felt a greater sense of social responsibility and had a more altruistic moral outlook than bystanders.
They had higher empathic concern for others and were more willing to take risks.
These results were independent of demographic factors or situational differences.
Even though feeling compassion and empathy for Jews could lead to death, the rescue group showed a high level of compassion and empathy for those in need.
---p.320 From “Conclusion: How do ordinary people fight against immorality? Who risks everything to help others?”

In the painful electric shock studies I developed, the disobedience rate was very (very) low.
It was so low that no matter how many times it was run, it was difficult to do a reliable statistical analysis of disobedience.
So I had to find a different approach to ensure that at least some people would resist the order to harm others.
It took five years to systematically analyze the participants' post-test reports about why they followed my commands and to conduct six more experimental studies.
---p.329-330 From "Conclusion: How Ordinary People Fight Immoralities? How to Make People Disobedient in a Laboratory Environment"

Throughout the book, we have explored from a neuroscientific perspective the various neurocognitive mechanisms involved in prosocial behaviors, such as empathy, guilt, and agency.
We also observed that many processes occurring before and during genocide easily obscure its mechanisms.
For example, genocide often involves hate propaganda, dehumanization, and other forms of psychological manipulation that can influence individuals to engage in violence.
Genocides also often arise from long-standing conflicts, from the growing categorization of "us" versus "them."
Such tensions can fuel hatred and violence.
Furthermore, we observed that when people decided to follow the orders of an authority figure, their prosocial mechanisms also changed.
People experience a decrease in empathy for the victim's suffering and a weakening of guilt, responsibility, and agency.
These influences affect our ability to fully accept the consequences of our actions.

While it is important to hold perpetrators of genocide accountable, it is also crucial to take a nuanced, interdisciplinary approach to understanding the complex dynamics, such as the unconscious neural activity that contributes to perpetrating genocide.
This knowledge can then be used to develop interventions that promote empathy, moral courage, and independent thinking.
The key to prevention is understanding.

---p.344 From "Epilogue: Horizon of Hope"