Why people do what the voices tell them to do

People who hear voices often report being given commands by them but not everyone obeys such commands. Researchers from the Adult Learning Disability Service in Prescot, Merseyside and the University of Manchester studied 49 people who were hearing voices. They classified the commands the participants had been given as benign, self-harm or harm-others. The study found that obeying their last self-harm command was associated with 'elevated voice malevolence,' worse symptoms and perceived negative consequences for non-compliance. Compliance with the last harm-others command was associated with more severe symptoms, worse perceived consequences for non-compliance and higher levels of social rank attributed to the voice.

Barrowcliff, Alastair L. and Haddock, Gillian - Factors affecting compliance and resistance to auditory command hallucinations: perceptions of a clinical population Journal of Mental Health, 2010; 1–11, iFirst article