Annotated Bibliography On Obedience And Authority Essay

Obedience to people in authority is a deep-rooted trait that we all possess by virtue of our upbringing, and as Milgram put it, “it is only the person dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond, with defiance or submission, to the commands of others” (Milgram 1974). This trait is exhibited every day in family circles, workplace and school. People are most likely to obey instructions from people they perceive their authority to be legal or moral. We see people obeying their pastors, leaders in various societies and other people they see as higher to them; and they obey anything they are being told even if it involves killing another human being. They justify their actions, however wrong, on obedience to authority.

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.

In this article, “Just Do What the pilot Tells You” Theodore Dalrymple and “The Genocidal Killer in the Mirror” by Crispin Sartwell express two different viewpoints expressed towards obedience. While both authors are addressing the issue of disobedience, Dalrymple approaches the issue, stating, “Some people think a determined opposition to authority is principled and romantic” (Dalrymple 3) while on the other hand, Sartwell emphasizes that authority, especially hierarchies are the most “evil” thing in our society. Despite the well-executed argument of the two author's, Dalrymple takes a self-centered approach, forcing the reader to agree with his opinion.

Obedience is the requirement of all mutual living and is the basic element of the structure of social life. Conservative philosophers argue that society is threatened by disobedience, while humanists stress the priority of the individuals' conscience. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, designed an experiment that forced participants to either violate their conscience by obeying the immoral demands of an authority figure or to refuse those demands. Milgram's study, reported in "The Perils of Obedience" suggested that under a special set of circumstances the obedience we naturally show authority figures can transform us into agents of terror or monsters towards humanity.

“The Perils of Obedience” was written by Stanley Milgram in 1974. In the essay he describes his experiments on obedience to authority. I feel as though this is a great psychology essay and will be used in psychology 101 classes for generations to come. The essay describes how people are willing to do almost anything that they are told no matter how immoral the action is or how much pain it may cause.

Individuals often yield to conformity when they are forced to discard their individual freedom in order to benefit the larger group. Despite the fact that it is important to obey the authority, obeying the authority can sometimes be hazardous especially when morals and autonomous thought are suppressed to an extent that the other person is harmed. Obedience usually involves doing what a rule or a person tells you to but negative consequences can result from displaying obedience to authority for example; the people who obeyed the orders of Adolph Hitler ended up killing innocent people during the Holocaust. In the same way, Stanley Milgram noted in his article ‘Perils of Obedience’ of how individuals obeyed authority and

Following orders is of the utmost importance in the military. Obedience is what enables the military to operate in an organized and effective manner which is clearly very important during challenging military situations. While an individual can question the notion of obedience in daily life, this luxury is often not available in the military where the grand goals and aims require smooth internal functioning and hierarchical coordination. Indeed, many of the standards that would be frowned upon outside the military are essential to the work's success within. For example, punishment is not deemed to be a positive occurrence in an average person’s life, whereas the military guide maintains that punishment

Obedience as an act can be traced back to the very beginnings of human history. The common belief has always been to obey authority at all cost. This act has never been questioned because authority corresponds to the common belief that respecting authority and obeying them will lead you to success in all aspects of life. Obedience is not defined to specific situations and its context can be portrayed in various ways. For example, Erich Fromm writes in his essay, “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem; “Human history began with an act of disobedience, and it is not unlikely that it will be terminated by an act of disobedience.” This statement suggests that everything which we perceived to be

First, an individual usually internalizes compliance, but this is not necessarily the case in obedience. The latter can occur through internalization as well as through the existence of cognitive dissonance. In other words, conformity is a form of social influence that emanates from within the individual (Milgram, 2010). As it has been mentioned earlier, one does not have to be asked to do something for them to do it in the case of conformity. It is a decision they make due to the external pressures caused by group influence or the influence of another individual. Compliance is ethologically a survival tactic whereby one is forced to do certain things to fit in the group as doing the contrary will make them appear odd. This is not the case in

Authority cannot exist without obedience. Society is built on this small, but important concept. Without authority and its required obedience, there would only be anarchy and chaos. But how much is too much, or too little? There is a fine line between following blindly and irrational refusal to obey those in a meaningful position of authority. Obedience to authority is a real and powerful force that should be understood and respected in order to handle each situation in the best possible manner.

In society, obedience to authority is ingrained in humanity from an early age, causing some individuals to blindly obey orders without contemplating the credibility of the source. In psychoanalyst Erich Fromm’s article “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem,” he explains that throughout human history obedience has been associated with virtue and disobedience with sin (Fromm 127). Fromm suggests that our conscience is an internalized voice of authority (126). Fromm claims individuals need to distinguish the difference between rational and irrational authority because obedience is effective when individuals want to obey, instead of fearing to disobey (127). Two other authors who examine obedience are Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee

Today our society raises us to believe that obedience is good and disobedience is bad. We are taught that we should all do what we’re told and that the people that are disobedient are almost always bad people. Society tells us this, but it is not true. Most people will even be obedient to the point of causing harm to others, because to be disobedient requires the courage to be alone against authority. In Stanley Milgram’s "Perils of Obedience" experiment, his studies showed that sixty percent of ordinary people would agree to obey an authority figure even to the point of severely hurting another human being. (Milgram 347).

One example of “Obedience to authority” was in World War II when Nazi’s tortured and killed many people in concentration camps. In one Nazi experiment they would take a daughter and a mother and place them on opposite sides of each other with glass in between. They would administer shocks with increasing strengths to either the daughter or the mother until they pressed a button that would kill the other. You may ask how could a human go so far as to torture other people in this manner. The answer is simple. Our brains are hard-wired to obey authority.

My objective is to introduce the topic of obedience to authority and provide an awareness of the vulnerability that most people have in this area. Today, there are theories that focus primarily on characteristics that explain wrong-doing and how

The following essay will be about understanding what is meant by and distinguishing the differences between the terms conformity and obedience. It will show the evaluation of two key psychological studies which seek to explain why people do and do not conform, also with explanations of minority influence. Whilst seeking to understand the reasons why people obey authority, it will show an evaluation of Milgram’s study of obedience, discussing the ethical issues raised from the research and