People usually refuse direct cruelty to humanized others even under authority

Evidence

Sensational perniciousness receives major attention. For example, Milgram’s (1974) research on obedient aggression is widely cited as evidence that good people can be talked into performing cruel deeds. What is rarely noted, however, is the equally striking evidence that most people refuse to behave cruelly toward humanized others under strong authoritarian commands, and when they have to inflict pain directly rather than remotely. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 631

Sensational perniciousness receives major attention. For example, Milgram’s (1974) research on obedient aggression is widely cited as evidence that good people can be talked into performing cruel deeds. What is rarely noted, however, is the equally striking evidence that most people refuse to behave cruelly toward humanized others under strong authoritarian commands, and when they have to inflict pain directly rather than remotely. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 631

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses the familiar Milgram narrative the reader knows from standard psychology summaries; connects to the ‘small acts of decorum’ reading interest. — connects to: People accept cruelty to the poor but recoil at commodifying their own bodies — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 414; Ordinary people’s refusal can topple even entrenched systems of power — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1661; Most normal people obey authority figures even to inflict harm — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 319
• QUESTION: The refusal rate is cited as ‘rarely noted’ — worth chasing the actual obedience study baseline numbers (proximity effect, humanization effect) to know how often refusal actually occurred.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 631