Stanley Kalgram's Essay 'The Perils Of Obedience'

A few years ago, my parents told me that we were moving to the United States of America. I went around telling people and showing off about moving to America. Little did I know all my friends and their families had made arrangements to move to America? Now I question my parents, did we move just because everyone in the neighborhood was moving or was it an independent family decision? Has it been a better decision than staying home? Yes! Did my parents decide to move because everyone we knew was moving? Yes! Has the decision and the outcome from it changed us? Yes, but not our identity. I am the same person I was seven years ago; but the life style has changed bit more than I expected. We (humans) tend to think we do not need anyone in our life

In an experiment described in Stanley Milgram’s article ,“The Perils of Obedience” most of the subjects as described as teachers, tend to follow orders from the experimenter even when they knew the victim (student) were being hurt by the electric shocks. The experiment in detail is to test how much pain someone can give to another just because he was ordered to. The experiment was divided between two people, a student and a teacher. They were to read a pair of words, then remember the second word afterwards. If the answer was incorrect then they were to be punished by the electric shock. In this case, the teacher is the main focus and the learner is the actor, who is just supposed to act in the experiment and he doesn’t get the shock at all. There were lots of switches that were designated from low to strong voltage. The teacher was supposed to shock the learner and when he did, he grunts at 75 volts, and he complains loudly at 150 volt. So as the voltage increased, he gets very emotional. Not experimented but another point to be analyzed is in Asch’s experiment. In an experiment, a group of students were instructed to answer incorrectly to the questions to see if the subject answers following the groups answer. This experiment not only tests the person’s decision making, but also the idea of following orders from others. For example, Asch states, “…members of the group were instructed by the experimenter

She separates her students into two groups to see how they will change and try to react to the group. She separated them into categories of blue and brown eye. Each day she selected a different eye color to be the superior one. They would discriminate against their friend if they were superior. They were just doing what one was doing, or at least following what the teacher told them to do in this experiment. Elliot then experimented on a group of prisoners. She separated them the same way as she did with the third graders, but the only difference was that this time brown eyes were superior. The result was the same as seen in the third graders. Lessing also states, “ But we also find our thinking changing because we belong to a group”(Lessing 652) which basically proves Elliot’s experiment with the prisoners and third grade students who find themselves involved with the group and are afraid to share their opinions. They just wanted to be in a group to fit in so they do not disrupt the group they were involved in. Also in Asch experiment on conformity, he shows us how much we will try to be the same as the group. Conformity is found everywhere around us. It is a huge force that can cause damage if found in the wrong place. As we grow, we will all experience conformity no matter where we live. Solomon Asch, a social psychologist conducted an experiment on the influence of