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Milgram's Obedience Experiments

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For decades people have been asking how could small masses of people be able to carry out genocides against a whole race, in particular the Holocaust. In social psychology the study known as today as the Milgrams Obedience experiments are said to answer some of the questions people have regarding the Holocaust. The study showed that when participants were presented with the choice to continue shocking other participants, until the point of 450 volts two- thirds of the participants actually did. Researchers consider this experiment to be a small scale representation of the Holocaust and why it was possible to get civilians to kill off the Jews. However there are opposing views; the controversy is how well this study answers our questions; are …show more content…

They suggest that the participants who did not carry out the shocks to 450 volts were people who had good morals to begin with (Miale and Selver, 2005). While the participants with good intentions and morals were a minority, it is still an indicator that not all the participants can be classified as equal. Many of the reasons Milgram provides for the obedient participants can be changed to make more sense of why mass killings happen. Could it be possible that the obedient participants in Milgrams study and the people responsible for the Holocaust were actually aggressive and twisted people from the start? Milgram’s experiment gave them a perfect opportunity to express their violent behavior as well as the Holocaust (Miale and Selver, 2005). These two events let people act violently without judgement because after all they did not orchestrate the whole thing. Another important fact that supports this theory, is that participants administrated higher shock voltage when an experimenter was in the room. The obedient participants felt like the experimenter wanted them to act upon their already present violent thoughts (Miale and Selver, 2005). In the experiment, when an experimenter was not in the room participants administrated lower voltage shocks because they did not feel as confident to express their aggressive behaviors. So the counter argument here is not that normal people will be evil if put in an evil situation, but that evil people will express themselves freely in an evil

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In the article, ‘Obey at any cost’, Milgram’s reason for research was because Milgram believed humans obey authority even when obeying authority could change their own behavior. Milgram’s experiment consisted of 40 men. The men were paid so they would all stay throughout the experiment. The participants were told a “story” telling them that it was a study on the effect of “punishment on learning.” They then had to draw a paper out of a hat to determine their roles.

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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

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As the audience reads this article they get information about all the killing methods, and more it 's a really big website that can give you informations about most parts of the holocaust that 's the most interesting in my opinion is the killing evolution. People will learn so many different ways that they killed those people that the audience didn 't know about. This article’s audience could be anybody that 's doing a research paper on the holocaust or anything bc they give many facts about the holocaust and the ways they had it there. PBS published this article on their website with many different topics to choose from. The information copyright date was 2004-2005.

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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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There were two groups in this experiment, the teachers and students. All of the volunteers to the experiments were the teachers and they had some actors play the students. The idea was to punish the students for their wrong answer through a shock treatment (http://nature.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article35.htm 1). Throughout the experiment, they began to realize that the “test subjects”

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Milgram’s experiment, and the two prison experiments both prove the effect of group hysteria on one’s decision making. In the Milgram experiment, it was discovered that 65% of the participants continued to the maximum voltage. When the first person continued to the maximum voltage, it was discovered that 90% of the remaining participants would continue to maximum voltage (Milgram video), which proves how group hysteria affects a person’s decision making. In the prison experiments, it was the group hysteria that provoked the guards to cumulatively harass the the prisoners. It was the group hysteria that diluted any opposition towards the inhumane practices of the guards.

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This made them believe they won't get in trouble for their actions. As the experiment took place Milgram knew what might cause each individual to consider it okay. This way Milgram had one of the experimental scientists express to the experimentee, “The responsibility is mine. Correct. Please go on (Milgram, 83).”

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The subject of obedience has long been discussed all around the world. What is it that makes individuals follow orders or fall into line when told to by people in authority? Milgram (1963) became increasingly interested in the subject after the tragedies of the Second World War. He himself was of Jewish descent which situated him and informed his research and choices. Obedience as a determinant of behaviour can have catastrophic consequences, and through his studies of obedience Milgram was looking at the extent a participant will go with administering electric shocks to a victim in the presence of an individual in authority.

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In both Milgram's experiment and the Holocaust by cultivating an “us and them” mentality ordinary people were able to undermine their own feelings of responsibility (Newman 15). Thus obedience not a massive group of heartless individuals contributed to the events during the Holocaust, as was shown with fundamental psychology gained by Milgram’s obedience

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Often people want to censor or hide information regarding the ideas that contributed to massive atrocities, but it is important that future generations can identify the patterns of thought that can lead to those events. In Why I Write, Elie Weasel says “Our Jewish children had no effect upon the killers,” reflecting on the lack of regard even for children by the perpetrators of the Holocaust. While these actions seem obviously evil and wrong to the normal reader, at one time an entire nation was complacent while murders of millions of people took place. In the fight to prevent future tragedies, it is vital that the public can recognize the social and political ideas that lead down the slope to extreme behavior. If one wishes to prevent future evils, they must be able to identify evil when it

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Today genocide is still occurring all around us. R.J. Rummel notes, “most probably near 170,000,000 people have been murdered in cold-blood by in the wake of war from genocide,” (Rummel). For this reason the Holocaust and many other examples should be taught in homes around the world. This subject shouldn’t be studied to terrify children or adults but to teach what happens when a whole nation follows a leader blindly. It is to the utmost importance that we never again fall for a scene of mass murder.

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Reading about the Final Solution is like reading a fiction psychothriller novel. Jewish inmates at Auschwitz were treated like corpses or animals, and German doctors freely practiced medical procedures on them. Every time I study the Holocaust, I find it impossible to believe that people were this heartless and inhumane. However, I realized that the Holocaust isn't truly about the cruelty of individuals, or even all of Germany. It exemplifies the nature of the human race and our susceptibility to cruelty and mob mentality, especially when faced with our own adversities.

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In, “If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably” Phillip Meyer discusses Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment and the probability of normal people electrocuting a stranger. Milgram’s experiment was originally to show that Germans were different, which would explain the Nazis and the Holocaust. However, what he found was even more shocking. Milgram discovered that most people, not just Germans, are naturally very obedient.

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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.

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When the voltage gets even higher the learner starts exclaiming about his heart condition and that he does not want to continue. After this occurs the first participant is extremely put off that the learner is complaining about his heart and he refuses to go on. When the teacher is urged on repeatedly, he states that “it is not essential for him” and disassociates himself from the experimenter and experiment. This participant is now going against the Normative Social Influence, which refers to when individuals conform because of their need to be accepted. By disassociating himself and stressing that he did not care about the experiment, the participant rejected the need to be accepted because he did not agree with the experimenter’s

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