Deliberating Experiments on Obedience Essay

In Stanley Milgram’s ‘The Perils of Obedience’, Milgram reports from his studies of how far an individual can go in obedience to instructions and he pointed out that individuals can go as far as causing serious harm to the other people. Basically, the experiments are meant to test the choice that an individual would make when faced with the conflict of choosing between obedience to authority and obedience to one’s conscience. From the tests, it was found out that a number of people would go against their own conscience of choosing between what is wrong and what is right so as to please the individual in authority (Milgram 317). However, the experiments conducted by Milgram caused a wide range of controversy for instance; according to Diana Baumrind, the experiments were immoral. Baumrind notes in ‘Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience’ that Milgram did not only entrap his subjects, but he also potentially caused harm to his subjects (Baumrind 329). Based on the arguments that have been presented by the two authors, it is apparent that the two authors are concerned with real life situations, authority and ethics but the difference is that they both view these perspectives from different points of view as indicated by their writings. By and large, they also tend to show the importance or the insignificance of the experiments.

The Milgram experiment was conducted in 1963 by Stanley Milgram in order to focus on the conflict between obedience to authority and to personal conscience. The experiment consisted of 40 males, aged between 20 and 50, and who’s jobs ranged from unskilled to professional. The roles of this experiment included a learner, teacher, and researcher. The participant was deemed the teacher and was in the same room as the researcher. The learner, who was also a paid actor, was put into the next room and strapped into an electric chair. The teacher administered a test to the learner, and for each question that was incorrect, the learner was to receive an electric shock by the teacher, increasing the level of shock each time. The shock generator ranged from

Milgram’s argument in his experiment which took place in 1963 stated that people listen to anybody who has some authority, in this case a lab coat. Milgram argues that people have blind obedience to those who say they are doing something that that is “morally right and/or legally based.” What is terrifying is that other psychiatrists and psychologists

Baumrind accuses Milgram of mistreating his subjects during the experiment. She states that, “It has become more commonplace in sociopsychological laboratory studies to manipulate, embarrass, and discomfort subjects” (Baumrind 225). She does not condone such studies that cause a person to feel that way. The teacher in the experiment is the only one feeling discomfort. In a way, Milgram is the one who is actually administering the

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.

Compared to the Milgram Experiment, one could easily argue that the prisoners suffered from far more anxiety and trauma that the “teachers” who instituted electrical shocks. However, as one might hate as much to admit, but the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment outweigh the risks. Not only did it bring to light many natural tendencies and moral issues of human beings, but also that it was this experiment, along with the Milgram Experiment, the revolutionized the ethical guidelines of human experimentation. While these two experiments may be considered among the darkest experiments in the history of psychology, it is important to acknowledge what they have also brought to

Milgram states, “two people come to a psychology laboratory to take part in a study of memory and learning” (WRAC 215). Because the participants were completely unaware of the true intentions of the experiment, Milgram believed they would act in a controlled way to generate proper results. This meant he could not ask for true consent for the experiment without jeopardizing the data. The importance of consent to Milgram was the lack there of it. While the test proceeded, more and more of the teachers started to break down from the stress. To compensate, Milgram explains that after the test was either finished or terminated, an effort was made to correct the psychological damage. Baumrind disagrees, having completely different view on the issue of consent. She argues that it is unfair to the participant to not receive their consent for an experiment that could be potentially traumatizing. Baumrind states that, “To guarantee that an especially sensitive subject leaves a stressful experimental experience in the proper state sometimes requires special clinical training” (WRAC 227). She continues by exclaiming that, “the subject has the right to expect that the psychologist with whom he is interacting has some concern for his welfare, and the personal attributes and professional skill to express his good will effectively” (WRAC 227). Baumrind does not believe Milgram was in any position to successful and safely completely the experiment because he made no

The ethics of the study were however called into question (Banyard, 2012). One protestors among many was Diana Baumrind (Banyard, 2012). Baumrind (1964) argued whether the ‘welfare of the participants’ was considered Banyard (2012, p.79). Baumrind (1964) further criticised the experiment for the damage it could do the public’s perception of psychology (Banyard, 2012). In Milgram’s (1963) defence, he was not ignorant of the potential harm caused to participants, (Banyard, 2012). In fact, he was

stressed and he hesitates about fulfilling the experimenter's orders. Desperation and the manifest suffering of the accomplice force the subject to stop the experiment; however, the legitimate authority orders him to continue. In this experiment, Milgram aims to investigate when people refuse to obey and defy authority in an explicitly contradictive situation.

This does not come across as a logical conclusion and sheds light on the illogicality of Baumrind’s argument. Her writing is filled with emotionally loaded terms such as “humiliate”, “manipulate”, “emotional-disturbance”, “traumatic” (295, 296) and claims that Milgram’s experiment relied on deception and harmed its subjects. These are all words that possess negative connotation and conjure up a specific type of negative image when read. By trying to appeal to the emotion of her readers and forgoing logic in exchange, Baumrind overloads her argument with too much emotion and fails to logically prove why Milgram’s experiments should not be replicated.

Baumrind fairly claims the “laboratory is not the place” to conduct studies of obedience as the laboratory tends to increase the number of variables above what is desired (Baumrind 90). Science Magazine defends Baumrind’s claim by conducting an experiment directed toward answering the question of the reproducibility of previously conducted psychological experiments. The data collected shows a significant decrease in the strength of the data collected and the number of experiments deemed reproducible was much smaller than those which were reproducible (“Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science”). If the experiment’s results are correct, then Baumrind has fairly contested the integrity of the results of the experiment conducted by Milgram since his results have a stronger chance of not being reproduced in a laboratory than of being reproduced in a laboratory. Milgram adds credibility to his article by mentioning the population from which the subjects were drawn. Initially, Milgram enlists Yale undergraduates to volunteer for his study which led to results consistent with his study, but severely taints the credibility of his experiment. He then modifies his experiment and enlarges to volunteer population to include that of anyone living in the city (Milgram 80-81). His

One might think that this experiment will stimulate the new research in the area of human obedience, but this did not occur. Despite the difficulties and the courage of Burger to conduct a partial replication of the original study, it did not produce any different outcomes and did not spark any new ideas in psychology (Burger, 2009). Instead, the researcher had to deal with an enormous amount of different commentaries and controversy. My main rationale for disapproving the Burger’s study is ethical characteristics of the Milgram paradigm. More specifically, now we have the Ethical Rules of the APA, which tell us that researchers should honor rights of participants to privacy, confidentiality and the right to withdraw the experiment. However, Milgram’s paradigm clearly challenges these fundamental rights and creates even more ethical dilemmas. Another rationale that I can include is the infliction of increasing pain on an unwilling participant, a characteristic that is unacceptable in modern psychological studies. Therefore, I would disapprove such experiment, because of ethical non-compliance and little contribution to the field. As for me, I view following ethical practices in my dissertation project work as a crucial element for success. It will allow me to produce reliable, meaningful and relevant scholarly data that would not be a subject to ethical

Obedience and Disobedience has been a part of key moments in history. Many have studied forms of obedience to learn how it affects people and situations. For example, Stanley Milgram conducted a well-known experiment in which the subject, named the “teacher” must shock the “learner” every time he doesn’t remember a word pair from a memory test. The focus of this study is on the teacher, and whether they will administer killing shocks when told to by an authority figure. Another well-known experiment is the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo. A group of college boys were separated into two groups, prison guards and prisoners, and were put

Before Milgram’s findings, the fact that people were inclined to obey to authority figures was already realized. He just confirmed this belief. Milgram followed effective steps by using precise procedures. He made sure that the experiment reflected features of an actual situation in which a person would obey to an authority figure: offering compensation (monetary reward in this experiment), being under pressure (Prods 1 to 4 in this case), and mentioning that the person who obeys can withdraw. These features can also be seen in a situation where a soldier is commanded to fire, for instance. A soldier will get a monetary compensation, is under pressure to obey because he chose to be part of the military, and he knows that he can resign at any time. Milgram created an experiment so precise and detailed that more than enough evidence was demonstrated.

Stanley Milgram’s (1963), Behavioral Study of Obedience measured how far an ordinary subject will go beyond their fundamental moral character to comply with direction from