Hierarchical distance weakens restraint most for mid-level intermediaries

Evidence

Most organizations involve hierarchical chains of command in which superiors formulate plans and intermediaries transmit them to functionaries, who then carry them out. The further removed individuals are from the destructive end results, the weaker the restraining power of injurious effects. … Disengagement of moral control is easiest for the intermediaries in a hierarchical system. They neither bear responsibility for the decisions nor do they carry them out and face the harm being inflicted (Kilham & Mann, 1974). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 451

Categorization

• XREF: Intermediate bureaucratic actors evading both decision and execution responsibility parallels diffusion-of-responsibility in authoritarian policy support.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 451