Response To Milgram's Experiment

From birth, we are taught to obey; first, we start by obeying our parents and then our teachers. Once we start our career, we have to obey authorities to climb up the ladder of success. The whole system is basically based on obedience; it is necessary to keep the order and peace among public. When it comes to obedience the question is not whom do we obey but how far does obedience go? In 1963, Milgram set up an experiment of “memory and learning”. There were two participants in each session; one of them was a truly naïve subject who was the “teacher” and the other one was an accomplice of the experimenters who was the “learner” in the experiment. The learner was supposed to answer word collocations and every time they gave the wrong answer, the teacher was asked to send an electric shock. The electric shocks were not really administered; the learners were giving verbal signals depending on the voltage level to increase the authenticity of the experiment but the subjects were unaware of this fact (Milgram 1973 62-63). Milgram’s experiment created a

In real life, that’s exactly what authorities do. They follow the same procedure Milgram followed, to make people obey them. There is not a single situation where someone feels comfortable when they are doing something against their moral values because an authority figure told them to do so. To make the results more realistic, Milgram had to put pressure on the subjects. However, he had never put a physical pressure on them nor had he ever threatened them with penalties if they disobeyed. The thought of authority and the feeling of not being responsible of their actions made the subjects obey, despite the stress they experienced and the learners’ reactions to the electric