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Applying Milgram's Four Theories Of Obedience

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Obedience is to obey with an order, request, law or submission to another’s authority. People have often pondered as to why we do what other people tell us to, even when we are unsure about it ourselves. Is it simply the circumstances we find ourselves in or is it our personality type, like the suggest ‘authority personality’ type. Milgram did a number of experiments to try and find answers to this and proposed ‘Agency Theory’ as an attempt to explain his results. He believed that people worked on two levels: the autonomy level, where your behaviors are your own and you’re aware of the consequences and accepting of the responsibility. The other is the agentic level where you pass the responsibility and blame onto an authority figure, freeing …show more content…

At the top, there is the system or establishment. This may be the Government, the armed forces or to apply it to an everyday setting the company you work for. The stronger the system is to you, the more likely you are to obey its authority figures. Authority figures are the second factor that a person’s obedience depends on. Someone who has higher status than you in the system would be deemed worthy of you obeying. Examples of this can be a prime minister or army general against a shadow cabinet MP or Private, even your Boss against yourself. The final defining factor as to whether you obey or not is the legitimacy of the order you are being given. A good example of this is at work if your boss asked you to undress, you would not obey him and probably call him out for sexual harassment. However, if he asked you to clean all the keyboards at work for being late even though it’s not a part of your job to do so you wouldn’t question him. This theory can be used to explain why the Nazi’s obeyed such grotesque orders. They were told by their leader, who was both their country ruler and the ruler of their army (Adolf Hitler), to murder many people after being manipulated into thinking they were vermin. Therefore, legitimizing the orders given by a system and authority figure who is respected and of higher status than everyone

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We learned to be obedient and to respect those with authority. In our minds resisting the formal social controls is a deviant act and would result in a negative consequence. Should we fear and question those in power? According to Annie Sunderberg and Ricki Stern’s film The Trials of Daryl Hunt this just might be the case.

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It is simply just human nature to conform and obey when you are told to do something. Therefore, authority and obedience hold great power in society and what it can do. It can change things so fast and take control with a group of brainwashed

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When we do something to please authority, we sometimes are not sure if it is for the right reasons. Every person on the earth has authority. However, the United States military branches are excellent examples to display authority. They have rankings such as corporal and colonel who interchange and are always moving up in the rankings. Sometimes what you are ordered to do is not always morally right.

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Milgram, supporting Kelman and Hamilton, would impart how extremely few individuals are able to resist authority due to their desire to please their superior (Milgram 86). If Markinson confided in Jessup because he was a former comrade, then it probably was more difficult to disobey him. Robert Prentice, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business, coincides with Milgram, Kelman and Hamilton as he portrays in “Obedience to Authority,” that Markinson’s obedience to Jessup likely occurred strictly because Markinson was more concerned with Jessup accepting his decision rather than the content of the decision itself (Prentice). If this is true, than it is probable all humans are capable of following similar unethical commands that are a result the desire to please a higher authority. In addition, Kelman and Hamilton would effectively reason Markinson followed Jessup’s mandate due to routinization.

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A persons’ preconceived notion that their authority has their best interest at hand can often lead to a corrupt society. According to Septima Poinsette Clark, “The greatest evil in our country today is...ignorance... We need to be taught to study rather than to believe.” In other words, people are taught to blindly believe what they are told without questioning whether it is right or wrong. This quote is valid because if the masses of a society believe in a corrupt authority then the few who rebel will be dismissed and thought of as outcasts.

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(What does the study add to our understanding of the phenomenon?) People are much more likely to obey someone of authority than expected, even if it is against their beliefs or morals. Something such as Hitler’s rise to power could have been just as possible in the United States because Americans are just as likely as the Germans to continue to do something that they know is

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1262 Words | 6 Pages

Few individuals have the resources to oppose such authority, as doing so can tarnish their reputation in the eyes of society. Obedience to a person or a thing

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Since the beginning of the human existence, man has always dominated and ruled over one another be it empires, corporations, or small groups. Authority and obedience has always been a factor of who we are. This natural occurrence can be seen clearly through the psychological experiments known as The Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. Both of these studies are based on how human beings react to authority figures and what their obedience is when faced with conflict.

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Society and government require people to be obedient towards authority, but is it always the best thing to do? During the aftermath of World War II many of the major leaders of the Nazi regime were put on trial for crimes against humanity (History.com). These trials were known as the Nuremburg war trials, were most of the convicted proclaimed that they were “just following orders” (McLeod 584). Being an accomplice to a crime is also against the law. In the Nuremburg trials, those accused were not breaking the law that their government had created, they were actually following it.

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For most people moral reasoning is based on rewards and punishments. In the first stage of moral reasoning individuals have an obedience orientation. According to Kohlberg, “An obedience orientation means believing that authority figures know what is right and wrong. Consequently, stage one individuals do what authorities say is right to avoid being punished.” (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2016, p. 292).

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Obedience and Emotion "Rules are the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men" (Harry Day). Although boundaries and guidelines are important for the success of a society, it is also invaluable to know the gift of freedom. If one is foolishly obedient and follows only the orders they are given, there is no growth for their future. People will start to become robots and will never learn some of life's most crucial lessons.

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When it comes to the different kinds of authority, having to use force or suggestion to follow an order is considered irrational authority while acting in the name of reason is known as rational authority. In the film A Few Good Men, Dawson and Downey blindly follow commands not only because it was their duty to, but due to the mind set they were trained in and the three social processes that created conditions in which moral thoughts against violence become weakened. By following an order from their superior, Dawson and Downey received punishment due to it being an unethical order, and Kelman and Hamilton effectively explain how their situation involves authorization. For authorization to exist, the subordinates are required to obey in the terms of their role obligations instead of their personal preferences (K & H 139).

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Anything is a double-edged sword and so does obedience. Obedience has many functions. Submissiveness to a authentic leader is indispensable to win a war, and also, it provides stability for a country. From another point of view, it will lead to chaos and confusions in an institution without obedience. On the contrary, submission also has some limitations.

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1596 Words | 7 Pages

We have been trained to be obedient to authority. This quality is deep-rooted in us all from the manner in which we were brought up. It is natural for people to obey orders from those whom they recognized as their authority. This is the natural response to legitimate authority and can be learnt in a variety of situations. In a summary written in the article “The Perils of Obedience” (Milgram 1974), states: “The legal aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations.”

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765 Words | 4 Pages

On the other hand, Compliance is where the change in behavior happen due to being asked to do something by another person and in this case you may choose to comply or not to comply but after reconsidering the social rewards and punishments the end result will mostly lead to compliance even if the person doesn’t want to. Lastly, we have obedience in which the person have to obey the order and do it as it comes from an authority figure. In this case there is no freedom of choice in the changing behavior, for example, military officers have to obey all the orders (Changingminds.org, 2017). In reference to our first social influence article which we have used, “Factors affecting the intention to use a web-based

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