The Milgram Obedience Study performed by Stanley Milgram proved that people are willing to following instructions given by figures of authority even though the instruction could result in the infliction of pain to others and goes against their personal values. The study had three participants. The first person is the person running the study known as the authority person. The second person is a pretend volunteer who is aware of the course of the study. The third person, who is the only person not aware of the situation, would draw a paper that was fixed to make them be the volunteer of the study. In that role, they would receive
Parker and Baumrind also question the legitimacy of the experiment and whether the results were influenced by the authority figure alone or by multiple factors. Baumrind states that the experimenter’s cold demeanor and apathetic demands caused the subjects to act in ways they would not have regularly (Baumrind 225-227). The isolation of the subjects is another factor according to Baumrind. The lack of someone to strengthen the subject causes the subject to fold to the authority (Baumrind 225). Parker also questions the legitimacy of Milgram’s experiment. He says it is a combination of several different factors that will result in the subjects actions, not solely a man demanding a subject to complete a task. He continues in saying that people’s actions are influenced by the situation and what is happening around them (Parker 238). Parker quotes Ross in saying, “We can take ordinary people and make them show a degree of obedience or conformity… to a degree that we would normally assume you would only see in a rare few” (Parker 239). Parker continues with saying a subject’s obedience is not determined by a simple command but by a range of factors. In Understanding Behavior in the Milgram Obedience Experiment: The Role of Personality, Situations, and Their Interactions, the author Thomas Blass states that
It has been found by Milgram that people obey for four main reasons these are; legitimate authority, the momentum of compliance, the agentic shift and passivity.
This experiment to me really shows just how many people will obey to authority even when it means going against your morals. The Milgram case helped me to criticize my surroundings more so than rather overlook what is going on. We are taught to obey authority at a young age and all throughout our adolescence. It is hard to say that some of these pre notions aren’t conditioned into our every day
Milgram experiment focused on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. In this experiment, three sets of people, the “teacher”, the “learner”, and
The Milgram study for instance was used to determine the effect that authority can have on ones decision making process. Milgram examined this by setting up a study at Yale University. Milgram set up a control room hooked to a fake electric chair. Milgram then had people turn up the voltage to the chair. Milgram would observe how far he could make the subjects “torture” the others just based off his authority. “Ordinary people are likely to follow the instruction of an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being” (McLeod 20). Obedience to authority is first response for most humans. It can directly alter and control the way one makes rational
Stanley Milgram is a famous psychologist who focused his studies on authority and peoples reaction and obedience to it. His famous experiment and it's results were groundbreaking in psychology, surprising both psychologists and regular people alike. First I will discuss the reason for Milgrims study of obedience to authority. Then I will explain the experiment, its formulation, and its results. Finally I will cover the influence of the experiment on psychology and society.
The Milgram Obedience Study was an experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram in 1963 to observe how far people would obey instructions that resulted in harming another individual. The experiment consisted of a “learner” engaging in a memory task and a “teacher” testing the “learner” on the task, administering electrical shocks to the “learner” each time an incorrect answer was given; the electric shocks started out small from 15 volts, labeled as “SLIGHT SHOCK”, all the way to 450 volts, labeled as “X X X”—of course, that was what the participant was told. The true purpose of the experiment was not disclosed until after the experiment and the “random selection” of who would be the “teacher” or “learner” was rigged so that the participant was always the “teacher” and the “learner” was always an actor. The shocks, naturally, were never given to the “learner”, and the “learner” gave responses that were scripted, both in answers to the questions and in responses to the shocks.
The two studies being analyzed today are the Stanly Milgram experiment and the Slater experiment. The two similar experiments yielded information about obedience to authority that explains the correlation in society between authority, obedience, and morality. Despite the major ethical problems in the Milgram experiment, it is known in social psychology today that human beings will follow orders from authority figures even to the extent of inflicting harm on another. However, even with this fact, it is also known that there is limits to such obedience.
Stanley Milgram, established a new course of study in the psychology of obedience. The purpose of his experiment was to have an idea of to see how people react the autocritical standard; during his experiment, he recorded how people will behave when given a source of power. Milgram gained this idea after the World War II. He believed that some people had the ability to essentially block out human thoughts of morals, ethics, and sympathetics when assigned to a job. The core issue that Milgram faced was finding a way to create a situation to test his theory; because behavior is such a complicated aspect of psychology to test, Milgram had to properly execute the experiment without physical harm from one person to another.
In the article, “The Perils of Obedience,” Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, published the findings of his infamous human authority experiment. During this trial, human subjects were tested to discern how far one will go in order to obey the commands of an authority figure. The test subjects were fooled into believing someone was actually being shocked; however, the reality was the other person was simply an actor and never received any shocks. The results were astounding: sixty-five percent of the subjects continued the entire 450 volts, while the rest lasted until at least 300 volts. In response to the experiment, Diana Baumrind, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkley, examined the actions and moral issues executed by
Although no such experiment can be 100% conclusive, the Milgram experiments do shed considerable (and disturbing) light on the behavior of ordinary people in obedience of authority. They also explain, to a large extent, the seemingly perplexing behavior of many ordinary Germans during World War II and some American soldiers in Vietnam. (“Milgram,” Obedience to Authority..).
In his article "The Perils of Obedience”, Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment to determine if the innate desire to obey an authority figure overrides the morality and consciousness that had been already established in a person. After Milgram conducted his experiments he concluded that 60% of the subjects complied to an authority figure rather than their own sympathy. There was additional testing outside the US which showed an even higher compliance rate. Milgram reasoned that the subjects enjoyed the gratification from the experimenter, who was the authority figure in the experiment. He noted that most of the subjects are "proud" to carry out the demands of the experimenter. Milgram believed for that reason, why the
Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment has definitely set the basis to explain the pain inflicted by a human being on another human only if she is ordered to. He asserted that a normal human being can become an element of destructive agents of even when the destructive effects of their work becomes patently clear as they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with basic moral standards.
Stanley MIlgram is a Yale University social psychologist who wrote “Behavioral Study of Obedience”, an article which granted him many awards and is now considered a landmark. In this piece, he evaluates the extent to which a participant is willing to conform to an authority figure who commands him to execute acts that conflict with his moral beliefs. Milgram discovers that the majority of participants do obey to authority. In this research, the subjects are misled because they are part of a learning experience that is not about what they are told. This experiment was appropriate despite this. Throughout the process, subjects are exposed to various signs that show them