Some social psychology for you

An extract from my social psychology textbook

On the morning of March 16, 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, a company of American soldiers boarded helicopters that would take them to the village of My Lai (errr don't come in Teochew?). The soldiers were very apprehensive because they had never been in combat before and the village was rumored to be occupied by the Forty-Eighth Vietcong Battalion. One of the most feared units of the enemy. One of the helicopter pilots radioed that he saw Vietcong soldiers below. And so the American soldiers jumped off the helicopters, rifles blazing. They soon realized that the pilot was wrong. There were no enemy soldiers. Instead, the Americans found several villagers, all women, children and elderly men cooking breakfast over small fires. Inexplicably, the leader of the platoon, Lieutenant William Calley, ordered one of the soliders to kill the villagers. Other soldiers began firing too, and the carnage spread. The Americans rounded up and systematically murdered tall the villagers of My Lai. They shoved women and chlidren into a ravine and shot them; they threw hand grenades into huts filled with cowering villagers.

An estimated 500 villagers died.

When I first read the article I was quite upset. And shocked at the cruelty of these soldiers. How is it possible that they realized that they had made a mistake and yet they carried out shooting?

Social psychology gave 3 reasons for this.

1. Informational Social Influence
Most of the soldiers involved in the killing were in their first combat situation. They didn't know what they were supposed to do or how they were supposed to react in such a situation. There was also little time for them to think of the "correct move". When the first soldier started shooting, the rest of them took it as a cue and started shooting too. Also, those who are less experienced will tend to be influenced by those who are more experienced. Like a junior and senior thing. You just follow whatever the seniors are doing.

2. Normative Social Influence
This is the need to belong to a group. You want to be part of the group. You want to be accepted. You don't want to be an outcast. So when you are in a group, you do whatever everyone else is doing, in order to gain acceptance from other people. It would be very "awkward" and "out of place" if the soldiers didn't shoot the villagers.

3. Obedience of Authority
All soldiers were trained to obey their commanders. There was no questioning. They didn't have to take personal responsibilities for what they were doing.


I can't find the next portion of the text which says that there were a few soldiers who didn't engage in the killings. But basically I remembered reading this part which says that they couldn't stop the massacre coz it was a minority against majority thing. But there's this soldier who shot himself in his foot so that he could be excused from killing the villagers. There's also this pilot who apparently landed his helicopter and saved 15 children.

I wonder if I should take that as a consolation.