While "I was just following orders" hasn't been a valid argument since at least the end of World War II, a recent study detailed in Fast Company has found that people tend to still believe it when doing harmful acts. Participants were placed in an MRI machine to track their brain patterns and then either ordered to administer an electric shock to another subject, or simply given  the option to do so (sometimes with a financial reward). In contrast to the Milgram experiment, subjects actually were sending real electrical shocks to other study participants, which raises questions as to who approved the study.

Regardless, what the study found was that, when ordered to deliver the shock, the parts of the brain that scientists believe are connected with empathy were less active, as were the parts of the brain associated with feeling guilt. Furthermore, even though the participants were informed that the shock would be exactly the same regardless of whether they were ordered to deliver them or simply chose to do so, those who pressed the button still rated the pain as less when under orders.  "This research goes a long way in explaining why workers can commit heinous acts when coerced to do so," said Fast Company. "On the job, they simply have less empathy for victims."

The study's authors, who work at the Social Brain Lab, in the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, published their results in the journal NeuroImage. "Here, we have shown that when people accept to comply with the orders of an authority, the neural response associated with the perception of pain felt by another individual is reduced in comparison with being free to choose which action to perform," said the authors in the study's conclusion. "Crucially, even subjective pain ratings indicated that the pain delivered to the other individual appeared less painful when people administered the shock according to the experimenter's order than when they could freely decide. We also show that participants' negative feelings and neural guilt signatures were reduced when they comply with orders. These results highlight how obeying an order relaxes our aversion against harming others, despite still being the author of the action that led to the pain."