Milgram's Discussion Of Personality

In his theory of obedience Milgram found that 65% of participants went to 450 volts and 100% went to 300 volts. From this he concluded that American men would obey an authority figure even if they harmed a stranger. As the participants obeyed the authority figure it shows that they were acting as agents to help the researcher with his study, this illustrates the agentic state.

In "The Perils of Obedience," Stanley Milgram conducted a study that tests the conflict between obedience to authority and one's own conscience. Through the experiments, Milgram discovered that the majority of people would go against their own decisions of right and wrong to appease the requests of an authority figure.

The purpose of Stanley Milgram writing his “The Perils of Obedience,” is to show to what extent an individual would contradict his/her moral convictions because of the orders of an authority figure (Milgram 78). He constructed an experiment wherein an experimenter instructs a naïve subject to inflict a series of shocks of increasing voltage on a protesting actor. Contrary to Milgram’s expectations, about sixty percent of the subjects administered the highest voltage shock. (Milgram 80). According to Milgram, experiment variations disproved the theory that the subjects were sadists. (Milgram 85). Milgram states that although the subjects are against their actions, they desire to please the experimenter, and they often

Moreover, even though Milgram explained obedience during his experiment, there are still factors in which the study lacks. Milgram’s study is performed in a lab experiment. This makes the experimenter have high levels of control which causes the study to lack ecological validity by making the task artificial. Even though this is useful as we could see how Milgram’s orders to the participants made them to obey what he says, the participants might have just following his order as part of being observed on their behaviours which may not be applied to real life situations. Participants were put in a situation that they would not find themselves in. Situations in the experiment like electrocuting someone when they answered wrong is something unlikely

Many times we are given commands or orders from a higher authority or power some of which we do not agree with or follow. This is because we use our moral values and human emotions to determine whether they were right or wrong. But there is a time where we may judge and not agree while others may not pass a judgment and be in agreement. In the study of Psychology we look to a researchers finding to prove the way we respond to emotional, environmental and societal changes. Stanley Milgram a researcher that set out on the behalf of Yale University conducted a study to determine how obedient

In Milgram’s study a participant was told to administer a shock to a person if they answered a question incorrectly. They were told to do this by the experimenter who was wearing a white coat and was portrayed as an authority figure. The participant therefore felt that the responsibility for his actions were being placed on to the experimenters shoulders, rather that their own. The main reason an individual will obey; will be due to the direct response from the high status of the authority figure. Many people would do something that they may not usually do if they were asked to do it by a person in a uniform such as a policeman or a doctor. It is also that they believe they will not be held responsible for their actions as they were only obeying a figure with a higher authority than themselves. Another reason that people may obey another is if there is no clear cut reason why they shouldn’t. If they are told to do something which is considered reasonable by another person, they may obey because there seems no logical reason why they shouldn’t.

Both Milgram’s study and experiment in California, show that the majority of individuals will obey the orders given by authority figures, regardless of the implications attached to their actions. This is known as blind obedience. The thing about blind obedience is it doesn’t just come out of nowhere, it is stemmed from the belief that what an individual is doing is right.

Topic 1: Milgram’s experiment does not support disobeying authority because no one wanted to disobey someone of higher authority.

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. Although 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. Most people would collapse under the pressure and obey any command given to them.

One conclusion is that most people are willing to do whatever an authority figure tells them to do. Most people believe that an authority figure probably knows more than they do so they are willing to do what authority figures say. Another important conclusion from his experiment is that people are easily deceived. They are willing to look past their own moral judgements and do what they are told to do. They believe in what an authority figure says even if it is not true. A third conclusion about human behavior is that there is no exact personality trait that is linked with defiance or obedience. This means that our view of authority is most likely learned through observational learning. It is engrained in children to listen to authority figures. Through school, work, and our parents people’s behavior toward authority figures are molded. Those are the three most important conclusions about human behavior that were gained through Milgram’s

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.

In this text, Stanley Milgram approaches the idea of obedience and its role in moral conduct. Milgram’s angle explores what happens when obedience and the moral conscience cross. His experiments proved that the idea of obedience superseding one’s morals is different between different people. To support this, he presents the actions during and after four different cases of the same experiment.

In the chapter "The Dilemma of Obedience" of the book Obedience to Authority : An Experimental View, Stanley Milgram explores the concept of obedience to authority, and why people cannot defy authority even the situation is totally conflicting with morality. He introduces his ideas by giving the definition of obedience, and mentions Nazi extermination as an instance of obedience, which contradicts with moral values. According to Milgram, obedience idiosyncratically binds humankind to systems of authority, and links the individual action to political purpose. In terms of observations, obedience accepted as an inveterate behavior inclination, and obeying a system of authority has been comprehended as

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.

These findings were stunning to those involved in the experiment. Nobody predicted these results prior to the research being done. In fact Milgram believed he most people wouldn’t go past 150 volts. He predicted that only 4% of participants would go past 150 volts of punishment. (Milgram, 1974) The results later led to Milgram’s theory of obedience. It is ironic that virtues of loyalty, discipline, and self-sacrifice that we value so highly in the individual are the very properties that create destructive organizational engines of war and bind men to malevolent systems of authority. (Milgram, 1974)