When the brain says "No!": An MRI study on the neural correlates of resistance to immoral orders

Milgram's studies explored psychological and contextual factors influencing (dis)obedience to immoral orders, but the mechanisms preventing individuals from being coerced into causing pain to others remained largely unknown. Our fMRI study investigated the neural correlates of disobedience to such orders, focusing on three phases of the decision-making process: order processing (predecision), action (decision), and outcome and effect processing (postdecision). Within these phases we targeted three sociocognitive (cognitive conflict, sense of agency-SoA, and theory of mind-ToM) and two socioaffective (empathy and guilt) processes. Our findings revealed that participants who engaged the angular gyrus and temporoparietal junction, particularly in the left hemisphere, as well as median prefrontal areas before obeying the command to send a shock-possibly to mitigate cognitive conflict between self and other and to enhance their SoA-were more likely to disobey the experimenter's instructions to administer a shock to a victim. Additionally, we found involvement of social brain regions during the postdecision phase (encompassing ToM, empathy, and guilt areas), especially in response to shock events, to process the victim's pain. Higher activity in these regions when obeying orders was associated with a higher rate of prosocial disobedience. This study sheds light on the mechanisms that lead individuals to resist immoral actions under authoritative pressure in an experimental context.