Analysis Of Stanley Milgram 's ' The Milgram Obedience '

Stanley Milgram’s obedience study is known as the most famous study ever conducted. Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted an experiment that focused on the conflict between personal conscience and compliance to command. This experiment was conducted in 1961, a year following the court case of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram formulated the study to answer the question “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?” (Milgram, 1974). The investigation was to see whether Germans were specially obedient, under the circumstances, to dominant figures. This was a frequently said explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II.

In the thought-provoking and factual article, “If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably” (1970), the author, Philip Meyer proves the idea that humans as a whole have the ability to be controlled incredibly easily by an authority figure, often times being so obedient that those humans will perform acts contradicting their moral code. Meyers confirms this with the use of the Stanley Milgram experiment, a very controversial experiment, beginning during the year of 1961, that proved the debilitating effects of the conflict between the need to obey authority and personal conscience. The purpose Meyers is attempting to get across to his readers is the idea that humans are capable of incredibly horrible acts, which he uses

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 an individual. After Milgram conducted his experiments he concluded that 60% of the subjects complied to an authority figure rather than their own morals. 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 this was the reason, why the German

Moreover, once participants had reached 450 volts, they obeyed the experimenter’s instruction to deliver 450-volt shocks when the subject continued to fail to respond.” This reveals that the participants during the experiment kept following through with the instructions from the experimenter and didn’t even think about wanting to stop and that if they kept going on the person receiving the electric shocks would die. The participants went so far as to an extent where the person getting shocked didn’t respond to the 330 volt level. This showed how the influence of an authority figure can alter someone's behavior and make them act in an immoral way, maybe out of fear or being pressured. In closing, the Milgram experiment and the Holocaust are very similar.

Ian parker, the author of Obedience, elaborates on the ethical issues of the Milgram experiments. He explains how Milgram struggled to place his findings

Stanley Milgram conducted one of the most notorious experiments on behaviors regarding obedience. His experiment focused on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. The purpose was to determine how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. Within the research experiment, Stanley Milgram refers to similar events in history that had similar aspects, such as the Nazi Holocaust and Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist plots.

Stanley Milgram, a psychologist from Yale University, conducted a series of experiments on obedience to explain some of the concentration camp horrors perpetrated during World War II. He tested the subjects' willingness to cause pain to another person if instructed to by an authority figure.

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.

The Milgram experiment is a social experiment created to test why the Germans were so pernicious during World War II. Stanley Milgram ascertains that more than fifty percent of normal people will conform to higher authority. Stanley Milgram said, “I found so much obedience, I hardly saw the need for taking my experiment to Germany” (Milgram, The Perils). Milgram made this experiment to test the Germans, but he found out that human nature let's humans follow authoritarian orders without question. “The learner, seated in a separate room

Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, and other members of the community also questioned the nature of obedience. Milgram reflected back to the 1933 events of the Holocaust. Milgram began to question the intentions of the soldiers serving under Eichmann. Why would all those German soldiers go along with kill millions of innocent Jews, slaves, homosexuals, children, and gypsies? Were the soldiers just following the orders of Adolf Eichmann, leader of the German Army? Milgram was interested in doing the obedience to authority figures study because he questioned if Adolf’s men were just following his orders, and this lead to killing of eleven million innocent victims during the time period of the Holocaust. Milgram became enthusiastic in researching the limit that the average person would go to obey orders from their authority figures, even if that meant

(2009) replicates Milgram’s infamous obedience experiment in order to explore the concept of obedience in modern society. According to Burger (2009), although Milgram’s obedience studies pushed ethical boundaries, the results from his experiments had a profound effect on social psychology in regards to obedience (p.1). In the article, Burger argues against the claim that the Milgram experiment psychologically damaged its participants. In response to critiques he states that the results from the follow-up questionnaires Milgram gave to the participants show that they were happy to have taken part in the study. Nevertheless, Milgrams study generated a debate about

Stanley Milgram conducted one of the most controversial psychological experiments of all time: the Milgram Experiment. Milgram was born in a New York hospital to parents that immigrated from Germany. The Holocaust sparked his interest for most of his young life because as he stated, he should have been born into a “German-speaking Jewish community” and “died in a gas chamber.” Milgram soon realized that the only way the “inhumane policies” of the Holocaust could occur, was if a large amount of people “obeyed orders” (Romm, 2015). This influenced the hypothesis of the experiment. How much pain would someone be willing to inflict on another just because an authority figure urged them to do so? The experiment involved a teacher who would ask questions to a concealed learner and a shock system. If the learner answered incorrectly, he would receive a shock. Milgram conducted the experiment many times over the course of 2 years, but the most well-known trial included 65% of participants who were willing to continue until they reached the fatal shock of 450 volts (Romm, 2015). The results of his experiment were so shocking that many people called Milgram’s experiment “unethical.”

Milgram’s infamous experiment was met with much controversy and even outrage. To Milgram, the experiment was considered to be a mixed blessing: it would both “make his name and destroy his reputation” (Parker 95). Diana Baumrind, a psychologist at the institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkley, was the spearhead of the anti-Milgram movement writing the “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience” in which she reprimands Milgram for the maltreatment of his subjects (Baumrind 94). Baumrind questions the ethics of Milgram’s experiment, stating that it was his responsibility to protect the subjects from being humiliated or emotionally distressed. She also argues that Milgram’s findings were inconclusive,

Milgram, Stanley. Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York: Harper & Row, 1974. Print. According to Saul McLeod, “One of the most famous studies of obedience in psychology was carried out by Stanley Milgram (1963).” McLeod, Saul. "Milgram Experiment | Simply Psychology." Milgram Experiment | Simply Psychology. 1 Jan. 2007. Web. <http://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html>. It is said that Mr. Milgram first started conducting his experiment in 1961, after the Adolf Eichmann case during World War II (WWII). Adolf Eichmann is a man that decided to run his own operations in Hungary in order to transfer money from Jews to the States. "Attorney General v. Adolf Eichmann." ICD. Web. <http://www.internationalcrimesdatabase.org/Case/192/Eichmann/#>. After Eichmann was caught and brought to trial, his defense was simply “he was simply following instructions when he ordered the deaths of millions of Jews roused Milgram’s interest”. (Cherry 4). Milgram was simply appalled and interested in Eichmann’s defense that he decided conduct the famous Milgram experiment. (McLeod, paragraph 4). Throughout history, more hideous crimes have

A lot of people argued that Milgram’s experiment was unethical, but made sense logically. His ”experiment was carried out in the shadow of the Holocaust. The trial of Adolf Eichmann had the world wondering how the Nazis were able to persuade so many ordinary Germans to participate in the murder of innocent people” (Cohen A24). During world war two (WW II), Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazis’ came to power through his dictatorship which ultimately led to the demise of millions of Jews in order to create a master race. With the obedience of the militia, he rose to power annihilating any freedoms Jewish people had. His tactics were brutal and irreconcilably fatal for all who disobeyed him.