Discussion Of Purpose Of The Milgram Experiments

Synthesis Essay “We are all brothers, and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all of our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive”. (Wiesel 41) The Holocaust was a mass genocide of many Jews, they were discriminated against by the Nazis without cause. Things might have been different for them if someone had chosen to step up and help them. Every person is created equally, and deserves to be treated fairly and with compassion. Helping others should always be the option that is chosen, no matter how dangerous or frightening it may be. People are easily influenced by others, they will change their behavior based on what others want, they will ignore situations to prevent themselves from standing out,

People will choose to do what someone else wants them to do, in order to make them happy. Even if they know it is not the right thing to do. Evidence that proves this is the Milgram Experiment conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram in 1963. The purpose of the Milgram experiment was to see how far people would go in obeying instruction if it involved hurting another person. In this experiment, there was a learner and a teacher. Participants were ordered to ask the learners a series of questions, and if they got them incorrect, they would give them a shock which gradually got more powerful with each question that they missed. The learner was really just a voice recording, so there was not anyone truly being shocked, but the teachers were under the impression that the experiment was real. Each time the learner got a question wrong, the teacher shocked the learner. The learner would wince from pain, and it would get louder and more aggressive as the experiment went on. Some of the participants wanted to stop the experiment because they didn't want

An example of this is the Stanford Experiment conducted at the Stanford College in Stanford, California. During this experiment people were split into two groups, guards and prisoners. They experienced a simulated prison environment for 6 days. The original plan was for the experiment to last for 2 weeks. However, the prisoners and guards were very quickly settling into their roles. Within only a few hours of the experiment, guards were already harassing prisoners, and they seemed to enjoy it. The prisoners began taking the prison rules very seriously. They knew that the guards were in control, and they had to do as they were told. Over the next few days, the prisoners became more submissive and the guards became demanding. There was even a situation where a prisoner had to be released after 36 hours because the experiment affected him so negatively. “Within the next few days three others also had to leave after showing signs of emotional disorder that could have had lasting consequences”. [Source B] These were also people who were declared emotionally stable before the experiment began. Neither of the groups in this experiment were truly prisoners or guards, but they tried to become what they were supposed to be. This is a perfect example of how people may become so caught up in their role in society that they will alter the way that they