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Stanley Milgram's Theory Of Conformity

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Going as far back as science and history can take us; we’ve evolved to a highly knowledgeable species. In this process of attaining knowledge, we have discovered many truths about our environment and our self. This truth further corresponds to the knowledge, which we can classify as either ‘personal’ or as ‘shared’. It is however, extremely important to consider the balance between these differences. It is empirical that ‘Knowledge’ varies from knower to knower. This is possible as there are numerous ways of attaining knowledge (ways of knowing). Furthermore, knowers may adopt ways of knowing differently, as some could be more emotional whereas some could be more religious. Since it is possible that the ways of knowing do not hold consistent …show more content…

Furthermore, a parallel fundamental accounts for the concept of Obedience. The psychological study of obedience shows us how shared knowledge shapes personal knowledge in today’s world. Stanley Milgram’s experiment on conformity was an experiment that proved his hypothesis of conformity. Participants in the study were told that they were a part of an experiment studying a person’s capability to learn. Participants sat in front of a window overlooking the learner who sat in another room. Participants controlled a shock switch with thirty currents of increasing voltage. The learner was expected to learn a list of words and if he/she failed, the participant was to impose an increasing amount of voltage per mistake. Although a few “learners” expressed negative reactions to the experiment, over 70% of the learners carried on to the highest level of shock …show more content…

This establishes the viewpoints of the society. Personal knowledge, on the other hand, allows an individual to know and learn freely. Personal knowledge exists beyond the limits of shared knowledge. Personal knowledge allows individuals to either conform to societal thinking, or to believe against it. In both the bodies of knowledge, what is consistent is Belief. Plato defines any information to be Knowledge, only if that information is truly believed in. The balance of shared and personal knowledge is crucial as neither can exist without the

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The teacher would be the lab rat thinking he was administering a shock for each fallacious response, and with each erroneous reply the shock would intensify. The astonishing fact was all participants would continue to 300 volts, which would precipitate extreme torment. Furthermore, two-thirds would proceed on to shock the learner with 450 volts, which would result in death, hypothetically.

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Labeling is how individuals are seen by other people. For example, if a person was an alcoholic that label will stay with them forever and people will judge the person based on that label. In the recreation of the experiment Schulman discovered that white students were more likely to shock the black learners than the white learners. The percentage margin was of 70 percent to 48 percent. As the book says, “... They imposed more shocks on the Black learners that on the White learners.

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Both of the volunteers were appointed as a “Teacher” and “Learner” to study the effects of punishment and torture on learning. Learner was provided by the list of words and then he had to say the second word of a pair. Learner got electric shock from the electric chair on making errors. Shocks voltage increased as number of errors increased. This experiment was held to observe the teacher after Learner being strapped on an electric chair.

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The author presents the desire for knowledge as a key aspect of human nature and the main force behind the development of human society. Further, Benét presents knowledge as something that can lead to addiction and drives those who seek it ever onward to take an even further step. John’s pursuit of knowledge leads him to learn

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This Milgram research on respect to authority figures was a series of cultural science experiments conducted by Yale University scientist Stanley Milgram in 1961. They assessed the willingness of survey participants, men from a different variety of jobs with varying degrees of training, to obey the authority figure who taught them to do acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Participants were led to think that they were helping an unrelated research, in which they had to distribute electrical shocks to the individual. These fake electrical shocks gradually increased to grades that could have been deadly had they been true. McLeod's article about the Milgram experiment exposed the fact that a high percentage of ordinary people will

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In this society, knowledge is deemed

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Throughout experiment 12-13, Milgram wondered if the person who gives the orders would change; would the amount of obedience increase? His results indicated that yes, the amount of obedience increased. In experiment 12, the learner demands to continue with the experiment. However, the experimenter told the subject to stop at 150 volts. 100% of the subjects obeyed the experimenter while discarding the learners plead to continue.

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Name: FerhinAkther Madonna Id: 250502 Subject: Medical Ethics-Assignment 1 Stanley Milgram Experiment At Yale University, Stanley Milgram a psychologist carried out the most famous study of obedience in psychology. The experiment was focused on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal ethics. In 1963, Milgram was interested in researching how far a person would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. Milgram was interested to see how an individual could be influenced by committing murders, for instance the Germans in World War II. Milgram wanted to investigate whether Germans were obedient to their superiors as that was the common explanation for assassinations in the Nazi in World War II.

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In the wake of Adolf Eichmann’s prosecution for commanding the slaying of over 1 million Jews, Psychologist Stanley Milgram called the role of authority into question. What would propel such evil acts from a seemingly normal man? In spite of what top psychologists assumed the outcome would be, the results were astounding. Despite the deep rooted convictions of the subjects opposed to causing physical harm to others, obedience to authority overcame the majority of the time (The Perils of Obedience by Stanley Milgram) According to Milgram in his famous writing, The Perils of Obedience, “Even Eichmann was sickened when he toured the concentration camps, but had only to sit at a desk and shuffle papers.”

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Set in a world of both ignorance and enlightenment, Fahrenheit 451 consumes the reader’s interest by projecting the life of a character who dares to escape the tight chains of censorship and intellectual repression. Ray Bradbury focuses in on fireman Guy Montag and his self conflicts as a result of a sterile world around him. Bradbury uses the findings of Guy Montag to present to the reader that knowledge is much more extensive than just power, and by involving different characters, he displays knowledge as happiness, fulfillment, and contentedness. Knowledge can be looked at in two different ways. The first idea of knowledge is that it’s facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or

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Before modern philosophy, Plato wrote numerous important philosophical works during his lifetime, but some of the more important ones are his works involving Socrates. With these works, Plato touched upon important beliefs that seem clear-cut to us, but are much more complicated than believed. One of these beliefs involves the meaning and importance of knowledge. The topic of knowledge is important in his works Protagoras, Euthydemus, and Meno. There are three points he brings up involving proper knowledge: the importance of good teaching, the necessity of knowledge to do what is best in the world, and how virtue is a type of knowledge.

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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.

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Knowledge is the information gained by epeirience and education. Many people believe that knowledge is always benificial. That concept is not always the case. It is true that knowledge is valuable , but some knowlege could become a curse and also overtaking. Mary Shelly illustrated the two sides of knowledge.

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(Russell 2014) Conclusion: Despite controversy Milgram’s experiment was ground breaking. It remains relevant today and is frequently cited in demonstrating the perils of obedience.

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Whilst the knower’s perspective is always essential in the pursuit of knowledge, it’s essence is greater in some areas of knowledge than others. Perspective shapes both what we pursue in knowledge and it affects how we interpret pursued knowledge. Whilst the latter has greater influence over subjective areas such as the arts and history, the former affects even the pursuit of knowledge in more objective areas such as the natural sciences and maths. What’s more, for knowledge to be knowledge, there must be a knower. Each individual knower gains knowledge through the ways of knowing reason and emotion (amongst others); these ways of knowing shape and are shaped by our perspective.

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