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Milgram's Behavioural Study Of Obedience Essay

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Milgram’s (1963) behavioural study of obedience was an experiment to find out a person’s willingness to follow orders from an authority figure, to carry out acts that conflicted with their personal conscience (De Vos, 2009); Milgram (1963) was intrigued to discover how far people would go in following demands that involved causing harm towards another person (McLeod, 2007). He was also interested in finding out the justifications for the actions of ordinary people that could be influenced into committing cruel acts for example, Germans in World War 2. They often stated that the reasons for their actions were because they were obeying orders made by their superiors, implying that their defense was based on "obedience" (McLeod, 2007). Milgram’s …show more content…

This technique can determine how a person can be induced to do something they might not normally do (Snyder and Cunnigham, 1975). This technique can relate to Milgram’s (1963) study as the experimenter starts with easy commands, instructing the participant to gradually increase the intensity of the shocks each time. Starting the experiment with smaller shocks will make it easier for the participant to carry on with the experiment as the shocks get stronger (Gilbert, 1981). If the participant started the experiment shocking the victim with a higher voltage, they would probably be more reluctant to carry on with the experiment. Therefore, to test obedience levels, Milgram (1963) would have to create a procedure which requires the participant to shock the learner at the highest voltage level, as the results of the current study implies that Milgram (1963) was unaware of how effective the “foot-in-the-door” procedure is to create high levels of compliance (Goldman, Creason and McCall,

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