Evaluation Of An Immersive Video Environment

Milgram conducted an experiment on obedience to authority. His influence came from the second world war, where Nazi’s committed evil crimes and were part of the mass murder of thousands of Jews. Milgram wanted to know what influences people to do evil things like this, and whether it is due to ‘just following orders’ from an authority figure. Slater et al attempted to replicate Milgram’s (1963) study of obedience using a virtual environment. In this essay, I will discuss the similarities and differences between these studies, using evidence to support my points.

This essay will look at an important key psychological experiment carried out by the renowned social psychologist Stanley Milgram which was carried out in the early 1960’s (Banyard 2012) to determine how far ordinary people would go to inflict pain to a fellow human based on instruction from an authority figure, and that of the replication of the experiment which was carried out by Burger in 2009 (Byford 2014) to determine if the same level of obedience was still applicable in the 21st Century, as was observed in the original study some 40 years earlier. The

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.

Stanley Milgram experiment bought forth the ultimate question in social psychology. How far away is someone go to confirm with society and be obedient to an authority to figure? It has been discovered though such experiments that people will obey orders, even if it inflicts harm on another individual. However, the same individuals were unwilling to inflict harm if it involved personal contact with the individual being harmed or even the sounds of pain and please from the individual being harmed.

In many situations, there have been authority figures with mass followings. Often the power the leader holds over their followers can influence them to do negative things. Many people believe that they can be independent enough to resist any pressure put on them by an authoritative figure. If this was true, then why do genocides mark the pages of history books around the world? Stanley Milgram sought to answer this budding question. He used his scientific authority to conduct an experiment which would reveal that most people would succumb to authority and obey their commands. This contradicts what most people would like to believe about themselves and their morals. Many people believe that they would never harm another human being, even under pressure from an authoritative figure, the Stanley Milgram Experiment proves that this is false. Although the experiment left its participants psychologically harmed, the results discovered why genocides continue to happen. Most people collapse under the pressure and obey any command given to them rather than doing what they believe is right.

As we grow up our parents teach us how to be respectful and very well-mannered. They enforce the importance of saying, “Please, thank you, and excuse me,” when needed. Parents also insist we listen and respect our elders, because they have authority over the world since they have been here the longest. We were raised to comply with the demand of someone who had authority over us. According to Patricia Werhane (1), “In the early1960’s Stanley Milgram undertook his noteworthy study of human obedience to authority. Puzzled by the question of how otherwise decent people could knowingly contribute to the massive genocide of the Holocaust during World War II, Milgram designed an experiment that sought to cause a conflict between one’s willingness to obey authority and one’s personal conscience.”

Stanley Milgram, in his essay, “The Perils of Obedience,” argues that ordinary humans can be destructive instruments when they obey authority. For example, the Nazis guards were following orders when they were committing genocidal acts. “Obedience,” written by Ian Parker, leads one to believe that people have different degrees of obedience under different situational factors. Parker partially agrees with Milgram on human obedience and how it can cause problems.

Stanley Milgram, an American social psychologist, writes in his article “The Perils of Obedience” about an experiment he designed which forced participants to either obey the demands of an authority figure, in this case the experimenter, or to turn against obedience and refuse to proceed in the experiment (Milgram 78). He found from this experiment that a minority of the participants refused to obey orders by the experimenter; therefore, most of the participants followed the orders given by the experimenter knowing it would result in the learner’s pain (Milgram 80). Milgram believes his results did not prove that these participants were sadists or mass murderers; however, his results did prove that ordinary people simply obeying orders can

This report will compare two experiments; Asch 's conformity experiment and Milgram 's obedience experiment. The two experiments will be compared for validity and their ethics. In addition, this report will take into consideration Zimbardo 's Stanford Prison experiment and the Lucifer Effect. To analyse how obedience and conformity theories can be used as an example of why good people can turn bad. This report will also look at how obedience and conformity can be applied to the criminal justice system.

The experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram have become one of the most controversial and most influential experiments in the world of psychology. In 1963 the Milgram experiments took place at Yale University, and tested subjects on obedience to authority. While reading Stanly Milgram’s “The Perils of Obedience” the topic of authority to obedience is discussed by Milgram stating: “Obedience is one of the most basic an element in the structure of social life as one can point to” (691). Submission to authority is not a new concept, but with the Milgram experiments it has been given a new insight to Obedience to authority. Milgram was inspired to conduct the experiments because of the events before and during World War II, and the Nazi’s ability to maintain control of the Jewish people. While the experiments performed were cruel and insensitive, I agree with the conclusions Milgram gained from the experiments because people are taught to obey authority from childhood, and Ordinary people can commit immoral acts and, defiance can result in punishment.

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

When I ended the experiment, Robbie told me that my instructions were unclear. I was surprised when Robbie told me that. Valerie and Pratap were able to follow the instructions with little trouble. Robbie said the wording I used for the explanations were not clear. I asked Robbie what kind of learner he identified as and Robbie told me he identified as a visual learner.

Their objective was, if variability of visibility and ethnicity would affect obedience. They used North African and French races however at the time North African’s were the target of prejudice in France, so the results may be skewed. It was concluded that visibility was a variable in the effects of obedience as in the hidden condition 53% were obedient as oppose to the visible condition only 13% obeyed (Dambrun et al., 2010). Even though 40% were more likely to obey when it was a North African victim in comparison to the 25% when the victim was French, this difference was minimal and thus the effect of ethnicity was insignificant (Dambrun et al.,

“At the time Milgram's study was big news. Milgram explained his results by the power of the situation. This was a social psychology experiment which appeared to show, beautifully in fact, how much social situations can influence people's behavior. The experiment set off a small industry of follow-up studies carried out in labs all around the world. Were the findings still true in different cultures? By and large the answers were that even when manipulating many different experimental variables, people were still remarkably obedient. (2007)”

However, while most of the people who Milgram tested obeyed power, they also showed signs of extreme personal tension. This elucidates their humanity, individuality and the possibility for defiance. Administering the shocks caused their stress to reach “extremes rarely seen in sociophysical laboratory experiments” (137). They would “sweat, tremble, stutter, bite their lips”, have “nervous laughter” (137). Three subjects even had “full-blown, uncontrollable seizures” (137). They did not want to inflict harm. Beneath the violence, they are empathetic, they are human. Fourteen of these people refused to administer the most extreme shocks; one protested “I can’t go on with this; no this isn’t right” and another said, “I can’t do that to a man” (139). This shows that a minority defied orders and maintained their morals. It proves that we are humans are not powerless to defy authority. However, it must also be considered that there was nothing to lose for Milgram’s subjects, the stakes in Rwanda were life or death. The subject’s suffered no losses if they were to disobey, “no monetary loss would come” and “no punishment would ensue” (140). And yet, twenty six of the forty subjects administered the shocks. If they were faced with violence, intimidation or death, how many more would have continued to electrocute to the highest level? In Rwanda, those who defied orders were deemed Tutsis “accomplices” and were “among the first to be killed” (448). Frighteningly, the actions of