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Hitler and his reign of terror
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Hitler and his reign of terror
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Hitler and his reign of terror
The establishment of hitler's dictatorship
Hitler and his reign of terror
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Recommended: Hitler and his reign of terror
The study measures the willingness of ordinary individuals to adhere to an authority figure who told them to commit acts on another individual which may conflict with their personal morals. The experiment found that 65% of the individuals completely obeyed the authority figure and made it through to inflict the final shock of 450 volts on another human being for an incorrect answer. These findings shocked me and led me to believe that it would have been entirely possible for a seemingly ordinary person such as myself to commit horrible acts against another person if I was instructed to do so. I sincerely hope that through being educated on such experiments and the holocaust itself, I would now have the strength to stand up for what I morally believe in and refuse any order outside of my
Ian Parker, author of “Obedience”, provides accurate depictions of the immediate and long-term effects of Dr. Stanley Milgram’s Experiment. In addition, he includes that under complex situations, individuals are easily induced to react through a destructive manner (Parker103). Americans commonly underestimate the influences of a situation; however, Parker thoroughly delineates the consequences behind blind obedience (Parker 104). Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton, authors of “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience” construe the atrocity of blind obedience committed by the United States Military. In March of 1968, crimes of obedience occurred due to an elusive order commanded by a higher ranked officer (Kelman&Hamilton 131).
Understanding the psychological motivations of the perpetrators of the Holocaust is a daunting task for historians and one that has been argued over for decades. One of the most important considerations when considering this questions is that of what sources to use and how one should interpret them. While a variety of sources may be available to study the Holocaust, all of them are not appropriate or helpful in attempting to understand perpetrators. For those sources that are used for this purpose, it is important to evaluate them and acknowledge possible moderator variables that might impact interpretation. The diary of Felix Landau is quite a different source from those used for Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men, and these sources, and
Stanley Milgram, a Yale University psychologist, shares his results from an experiment he conducted in 1963 regarding the obedience to authority in “The Perils of Obedience.” His experiment illustrates that when placed under peculiar circumstances, ordinary citizens are capable of performing terrible and unexpected actions (Milgram 85). Milgram rationalizes these proceedings by concluding that the average individual will decide to please the experimenter rather than resist his authority to protect the well-being of the learner (Milgram 86). Herbert C. Kelman, a Harvard University Social Ethics professor, and V. Lee Hamilton, a former University of Maryland Sociology chair, share of a U.S. military massacre in “The My Lai Massacre: A Military
(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
This is a direct example the dehumanization the Nazis employ to meet their agenda. Dehumanization occurs with the intent to force cooperation and force those under it’s effects to
Decades after the atrocities committed during the Holocaust, people are still baffled by the fact that approximately eleven million people were killed in Nazi Germany following the orders of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime (Niewyk & Nicosia, 2000). How is it possible that approximately 500,000 people participated in planning and executing eleven million people, including approximately 1.5 million Jewish children? (Radcliff, 2004; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2014). The atrocious crimes committed during the Holocaust might compel someone to draw the conclusion that humans are innately evil. However, the trail of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major contributors to the Holocaust, stirred animosity as his defense requested the dismissal of
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.
He saw that the more personal, or close, the real participant had to be to the fake one, while they were being shocked, affected the obedience as well. He also noticed that if there were two other fake participants teaching that refused to shock their learners that the real participant would not comply. Finally, he tested the experimenter telling the real patient to shock the learner by telephone, instead of actually being there in person, reduced obedience as well (McLead). The Milgram experiment and the Nuremburg trials can relate extensively to explain how the Holocaust happened the way it did.
Throughout this essay, the ideologies that surrounded the events of the Holocaust, the slavery of black people, the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the Asch Conformity Experiment have been examined with a clear understanding that they all have one thing in common – the choice to conform to the beliefs of the majority have proven detrimental or even fatal to a group of people within the society. It is extremely difficult to question authority figures, especially when many individuals have been brought up to believe that authority figures are the cornerstones of society. It is also extremely difficult to reject the beliefs of the majority of a society or population out of fear of causing unrest or becoming alienated from society itself. The whole concept of believing what others believe simply because they are the majority can be exceptionally dangerous for a society, however, it would also be quite difficult to uproot an entire psychological and political norm throughout the
Other experiments included injecting horse urine into the prisoner’s kidneys, starvation, and exposing these people to extreme, lethal, amounts of radiation. The workers, scientist, and doctors who carried out these experiments called the prisoners used as test subjects “logs” to separate any type of emotional feelings or remorse they may have for what they were doing to these poor
While arguably one of the defining psychological studies of the 20th Century, the research was not without flaws. Almost immediately the study became a subject for debate amongst psychologists who argued that the research was both ethically flawed and its lack of diversity meant it could not be generalized. Ethically, a significant critique of the experiment is that the participants actually believed they were administering serious harm to a real person, completely unaware that the learner was in fact acting. Although Milgram argued that the illusion was a necessary part of the experiment to study the participants’ reaction, they were exposed to a highly stressful situation. Many were visibly distraught throughout the duration of the test
The conclusion of the experiment is that people will conform to their social roles without even acknowledging the conformity or second guessing the morality of the role. One can compare Zimbardo’s experiment to the ordinary men in the Battalion 101 because the men were given power from the authority. Browning states that “Even if the consequences of disobedience would not have been so dire, the men who complied could not have known that at the time. They sincerely thought that they had had no choice when faced with orders to kill. “(170) Not only did the authorities place power into the hands of these men, but the police knew that if they had refused to do what the leaders had said that they would be coined traitors and sent right to a camp.
Arguably, one of the most well-known experiments regarding the tendency of humans to inflict harm upon strangers under orders from perceived authority figures is Stanley Milgram’s electric shock experiments in 1963 (Smith, Aquino, Koleva & Graham, 2014). The experiment was based on the Nuremberg Trials, wherein the Nazi soldiers on trial claimed that they were only following orders, and as such implied a lesser role in their crimes during the Holocaust. While there are many factors that influence injustice against a people, in this paper, the role of moral exclusion will be examined in detail in order to ascertain how those excluded from powerful groups by virtue of their lineage and race could then be subjected to significant harm, and perhaps
Government; what do you think when you hear this word? Do you think of Democrats? Do you think of freedom? What about President Trump? Now let's analyze your answer.