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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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Experiencing traumatizing situations repeatedly, especially events as despicable as those witnessed by the men of Police Battalion 101, causes psychological issues and the mind must protect itself to survive; one way that an individual’s mind prevents mental break-downs is through desensitization. After viewing numerous executions, it is likely that the men became desensitized to the killing process. Stanley Milgram’s electroshock study presents another possible explanation for the men’s behavior: following orders and obeying authority are ingrained within most individuals. If an individual in an authority position orders some to complete a task, it is difficult not to comply, especially when all or most your peers take part. Social factors strongly impact many aspects of a person’s behavior and affected the men’s decisions to murder the

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Even though “modernity has established the norm of individual integrity…it should be obvious…that the experience of [the 20th] century has done much to undermine this norm” (Forché 44). All of the previously discussed examples elude to this aspect by showing the disparity between the soldier’s actions and his morality. However, it is most prevalent when considering the soldier’s need to achieve moral dissonance in order to carry out his duty. Even though he knew killing was morally wrong, his particular circumstances forced him to disregard his morality in order to

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In the article of “The Perils of Obedience”, written by Stanley Milgram, the experimenter explains that the experiment is to see how far a person could hurt a victim in a situation where he is ordered to do so. Also, in the article “The Stanford Prison

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Milgrams study of obedience is about the tendency to conform to authority Milgram uses a doctor in a lab coat to represent authority and used volunteer subjects to shock another subject if they do not repeat three word correctly it can be compared to the villagers in Barrnetts article because Milgrams study showed that over 50% of the test subjects are willing to do what the authority the doctor in this case instructions or commands. It was proven on how far they went in shocking the other subject with the highest setting on the shocking device. The same can be linked on what the Nazi’s did to the villagers in Muanchaussen with the swift and decisive ways they took care of protesters made the Nazi’s the authority and must be adhered too in any case. And that even if people know it is wrong they still listen to the authority this is the case with the employees like the doctors and nurses also including the maintenance man working in the euthanasia camp they continue to do what they are told to do even when they know what is happening is

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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).

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The followers in Jonestown executed every task Jones asked them to, and this decreases cult member’s agency because they become less responsible for their actions. Those in Jonestown followed every order their leader commanded to please him, and this is exactly what happened in the Stanley Milgram Experiment. The American Psychological Association states, “In the middle of the jungle in Guyana, South America, nearly 1,000 people drank lethal cyanide punch or were shot to death, following the orders of their leader, Jim Jones… And when people are uncertain, they look to others for cues on what to do, research has shown.” Jones’ church members were willing to do anything for him, even kill themselves.

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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

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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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In the article, “The Perils of Obedience,” author Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, conducted his infamous experiment over whether humans were capable of inflicting harm onto another human being. The findings of this were astounding; sixty-five percent of the adults involved continued to the highest form of voltage able to be used (Milgram).

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The Milgram’s experiment film, is a social obedience and human interaction with authority figures and conformity. The experiment involved placing an individual in a situation in which they would be forced to choose either to obey or disobey commands given by an authoritative person that were contrary to their own morals. The prisoners were to remain unnamed and only referred to themselves and others by their ID number. As an additional for shaving their heads, the prisoners were forced to wear a stocking cap. The film was very sad and emotional to watch how these people/ student actors was treated and how could they do a such thing like this.

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Christopher R. Browning in his book “Ordinary Men,” argues the influence that violence and pressure had on these men to carry out a such attack. For instance, he mentions that some of the men who agreed “sincerely thought that they had no choice when faced with orders to kill,” emphasizing the nature of their actions (Browning, pg. 170). If they didn’t follow orders, what would happen to them? Even though some were given the choice to not be a part of this, it is predictable that there was a sense of hesitance to disobey orders. In addition, he states “many policemen admitted responding to the pressures of conformity,” by making such a statement one can infer that some felt forced to act as they did because they did not want to be judged by their peers (Browning, pg.174).

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Milgram himself concluded how easily ordinary people ‘can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority". (Milgram 1974) As this report has highlighted the research is not without controversy with many questioning to what extent Milgram’s experiment is true to real life and has been criticized for not highlighting further situational variables in determining obedience to authority. Regardless of this, there is no doubt Milgram highlighted a rather troubling phenomenon.

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The Milgram experiment was conducted to analyze obedience to authority figures. The experiment was conducted on men from varying ages and varying levels of education. The participants were told that they would be teaching other participants to memorize a pair of words. They believed that this was an experiment that was being conducted to measure the effect that punishment has on learning, because of this they were told they had to electric shock the learner every time that they answered a question wrong. The experiment then sought out to measure with what willingness the participants obeyed the authority figure, even when they were instructed to commit actions which they seemed uncomfortable with.

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There had been experimentation on obedience but none had been done like Milgram’s. The experimenter warns, “In this experiment, one of you will be the learner and receive shocks when you make a mistake in word pairs read to you, and the other one will be the teacher and administer the shocks when the word pair repetition is wrong.” (Slater 33). He wanted to see if people would shock a person continuously because someone had told them to. Milgram wanted to know how far people would go.

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