Modern Milgram? McDonald’s strip search prankster.

Milgram’s obedience research is in the news again. This time in discussions about a disturbing new movie. ‘Compliance’, a feature by film-maker Craig Zobel, is based on the story of the notorious McDonald’s strip search prankster.

The real-life plot is this : a policeman calls a small town fast food restaurant to tell the manager that one of the restaurant’s staff is suspected of stealing. The officer instructs the manager to call the staff member into the office. Once there, the manager is instructed to conduct a strip search.

In the most famous incident of the 70 reported over a decade, the policeman convinced the female manager of a fast food restaurant in Mt Washington Kentucky to call her fiancé and tell him to come in and keep watch on the young employee while the manager went back to work. The fiancé is exhorted by the policeman to sexually assault the young woman. And he does. All in the name of the law.

In the wake of this particular episode – the most disturbing and infamous, involving as it did imprisonment and rape – it didn’t take long for journalists to invoke Milgram’s obedience research.

Parallels between Milgram’s experiment abounded when the story first broke. What was it that led the store managers to so obediently follow the policeman’s instructions? How could people be led to such inhumane behaviour?

Journalists were quick to make the connection, comparing the fast food managers to Milgram subjects who it was implied, were guilty of similar crimes.

As has been the case with Milgram’s obedience research, the focus of discussion was less about the perpetrator of the prank than on the people targeted.

But we don’t know how many store managers hung up on the so called policeman. We don’t how many of them saw through the hoax and dismissed it as a prank.  Instead we’re invited to come to pessimistic conclusions about human nature based on the case’s most dramatic examples.

Just as subjects in Milgram’s obedience research became the focus of criticism and scorn, it is the fast food managers whose behaviour has come under the microscope. In contrast, the unscrupulous and manipulative prank caller remains strangely anonymous.

Once again, the obedience experiments have been invoked to shed light on behaviour that is profoundly disturbing. And the power of the research is strengthened as a result.

It seems the film divided first night audiences. Some walked out, others gave it a standing ovation. The mixed reception is reminiscent of the admiration, disgust and fascination that greeted Milgram’s research.

I’m not sure I’ll go along and see “Compliance”. I’m sure it will have much to say about the perils of slavishly obeying orders from an authority. Whether or not it goes beyond scientific cliché is the question.