Similarities Between The Perils Of Obedience And The Stanford Prison Experiment

In 1963, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a controversial, but highly revered, study on obedience. The experiment was designed to test people’s morals versus an extreme authority, but, as predicted, obedience prevailed. Then in 1973, Philip G. Zimbardo created his own experiment, not unlike Milgram’s, that analyzed the potential of individuals to withstand the pressure of succumbing to an obedient role based on the environment. Both Stanley Milgram, author of “The Perils of Obedience,” and Philip Zimbardo, author of “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” conducted these experiments to show how an ordinary person’s obedience could be affected based off of the situation they are put in. Today, society raises people to believe that being

Milgram’s study tested how much pain one person could inflict upon another under the right conditions because of the obedience they felt towards the authority figure. Milgram’s basic design began with two people, one who was the teacher who delivered the shocks when needed, and the other the learner who received the shock if they answered incorrectly. The twist was that the study was all about the teacher, and the learner was actually an actor that received no shock at all. The teacher fully believed in the experiment, and was being observed to see how far he was willing to go to obey the demands of the experimenter that was next to them. With each increase in voltage, the actor showed more discomfort and eventually got emotional. The only way for the teacher to end the experiment was to clearly disobey the orders of the experimenter (Milgram 579). One would think that most of, if not all, people would end the experiment immediately after the learner had any inkling of distress, but that was not the case. Instead, the teacher continued the torment so they could feel that sense of satisfaction that comes with following

Children are brought up with the notion that conforming to a group is a positive thing, no matter the cost. Being brought up that way affects how susceptible people are to authority. In Zimbardo’s experiment, the more time the subjects spent in their roles, the easier it became for them to go along with it. For the guards, once they tested out their newfound authority, they couldn’t get enough! They used it to humiliate the prisoners, keep control of the prison, and gain that sense of satisfaction that came with doing their job right. In Milgram’s experiment, the longer the teachers were under the influence of the experimenter, the easier it became for them to shock the learner. A specific example of this would be from Fred Prozi, whose results were extremely dramatic. Once the experiment had begun and the learner started to show discomfort from the shocks, Prozi half-heartedly refused to continue. All it took was a little push from the experimenter and the confirmation of having no liability if anything were to happen to get Prozi to continue to give the learner all 450 volts (582-584). Both of these experiments call attention to how easy it is for people to obey a higher authority based on what kind of situation they are