Milgram's Study of Obedience to Authority

In each study the participant was give the role of ‘teacher’ and placed in a room with a ‘scientist’. The teacher was instructed to ask the learner (who was sitting in an adjacent room, and who along with the scientist where confederates in the experiment) a series of word associations, the teacher had to read the first word and the learner had to answer a matching word form a choice of four given by the teacher. They answered by pressing a corresponding switch on a unit in the room. The teacher was sat in front of a ‘shock generator’ a device which had 30 switches along the front which went up in 15 volt increments from 15volts to 450 volts. The labels above the switches described the shocks as ranging from ‘slight shock’ to ‘danger severe shock’ above 375 volts and the post powerful shock had XXX above it. In Milgram’s study the teacher was given a 45 volt shock to experience the sensation of being shocked and to show how the leaner would receive the shocks. In Burgers replication the teacher only received a 15 volt shock. In both cases the learner made the teacher and the experimenter aware that he had a minor heart

The Milgram Experiment on Obedience to Authority Figures Stanley Milgram’s experiment on obedience is one of the most famous studies of obedience in psychology. Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority figures focuses on the morally ambiguous line between obedience to authority and personal conscience. The Milgram Experiment is involved in many different aspects of history and what it means to be human, which this paper will attempt to describe.

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

The fact that 60% of the subjects can inflict electric shock and pain to the others only to be obedient to be someone is really a Shocking Statement. The title of Stanley’s biography; “The Man who Shocked the World” by Thomas Blass seems like an apt name as we generally consider that we do not resort to hurting somebody for a small materialistic gain.

The two studies being analyzed today are the Stanly Milgram experiment and the Slater experiment. The two similar experiments yielded information about obedience to authority that explains the correlation in society between authority, obedience, and morality. Despite the major ethical problems in the Milgram experiment, it is known in social psychology today that human beings will follow orders from authority figures even to the extent of inflicting harm on another. However, even with this fact, it is also known that there is limits to such obedience.

In the article, “The Perils of Obedience,” Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, published the findings of his infamous human authority experiment. During this trial, human subjects were tested to discern how far one will go in order to obey the commands of an authority figure. The test subjects were fooled into believing someone was actually being shocked; however, the reality was the other person was simply an actor and never received any shocks. The results were astounding: sixty-five percent of the subjects continued the entire 450 volts, while the rest lasted until at least 300 volts. In response to the experiment, Diana Baumrind, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkley, examined the actions and moral issues executed by

Results of the study are looked at by the number of participants and students when they stopped or continued to the end of the experiment. Participants in the study gauged on how far they would go in delivering shock the students. The question posed to a group of student from Yale where the study was conducted and participated in the experiment. The result was 3 out of 100 provided answers to giving the maximum voltage allowed by the administrator. 65% of the participants in the study which is shocking to the question proposed before the experiment proceeded with pressing the lever for maximum voltage (Cherry, 2008). The subjects in the study became highly agitated, angry, distraught, and extremely upset with the examiners (teachers); the participant students continued all the way until the end of the study. Unexpectedly the findings produce quite a shock itself because of the high level of participants who would follow orders by continuing the shock someone as they know and understand that the severity of voltage would go from 30 volts and in 15-volt increments, and it continues all the way to 450 volts. The levels were labeled, slight, moderate, and danger “severe shock.” Moreover, the last two labels were simply documented as XXX.

There has been many variations of this experiment also. For example, the teacher was free to choose the shock level and thirty-eight of the forty subjects did not go above 150 volts. Another example would be when the experimenter gave the instructions by telephone. Only one third of the subjects were obedient in this version of the experiment. The subjects found it easier to disobey when they were not face to face with the experimenter.

These shocks were to start at a mild 15 volts and gradually increased to an extremely painful (and lethal) level of 450 volts. During the experiment the teacher was coaxed to continue giving the shocks to the learner. The results of the experiment were most disturbing: most (60%) of the “teachers” (who were ordinary people) continued to give the electric shocks right up to the maximum (lethal) level of 450 volts, just with a little bit of coaxing from the psychologist.

With each incorrect answer, the voltage of the electric shock would increase, beginning at a voltage of 15 volts to a deadly voltage of 450 volts. However, the experiment was most definitely rigged. The learners were hired actors used as part of the experiment to determine whether the teacher (one of the 40 male participants) would continue to obey the commands of the experimenter despite the blood chilling screams from the opposite room.  Milgram further explains in detail why the reasoning behind his experiment is surprisingly valid. The most important information of Milgram’s article provides a table recording the different variations of shock levels, beginning from slight shock to XXX. The different levels of shock voltages are measured from 15 volts to 450 volts. The right side of the table attributes to number of teachers who found the corresponding voltage as their maximum shock. A majority of the teachers did not identify a maximum shock until 300 volts was reached. At this point, various teachers discontinued the experiment and refused to participate further. However, Milgram states “of the 40 subjects, 26 obeyed the orders of the experimenter until the end, proceeding to punish the victim until they reached the most potent shock available on the shock generator”(376). Milgram’s data shows that 65 percent of the men chosen, decided to inflict the highest pain threshold upon

In 1974 Stanley Milgram conducted the classic study of obedience to authority. The study looked into how far individuals would be willing to go, and were asked could they deliver increasingly devastating electric shocks to a fellow human being, as they were requested to do so by the professor in charge of the experiment.

Stanley Milgram’s 1963 studies into obedience have provided important and shocking insights into the power of authority. The study set out to discover how obedient people really are. Debate and controversy have surrounded the study since the results were first published. Predictions made by psychologists before the experiment proved dramatically inaccurate. The experiment led volunteers to believe they were administering increasingly painful and dangerous electric shocks to another volunteer for the purposes of a study on memory. The memory study was a ploy, the real focus was on the behaviour of participants inflicting pain on another person. Participants often acted against their own moral judgements and obeyed authority, even when

The Stanley Milgram Obedience experiment is an experiment to replicate Nazis following Hitler’s orders to kill Jews in World War II. Whereas, in this experiment, forty males were recruited to complete this study; they were told it was a memory and learning experiment. In this experiment, every time the subject (learner) answered incorrectly, the recruited male (teacher) would have to shock them. The results were: all forty subjects (teachers) obeyed up to 300 volts, and twenty-five of the so-called teachers, continued to give shocks up to the maximum level of 450 volts.

Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiment video shows an experiment that explores how authority, or someone in authority, can impact the actions of the individual. While the individual may know that their actions are not good, they can be swayed by an authority figure to carry out actions that the individual would not normally do. This is because the authority figure persuades them to alter their actions because it is necessary for the greater good of the cause at hand. This is possible because the individual's fear of non-conformity may override their concerns of others, and they feel they are able to defer the responsibility of their actions to the authority figure.

It was hard to believe that 60 - 65% of test subjects who were “teachers” didn’t stop the test until the highest amount of shock. I personally would not allow myself to be at fault of someone else's harming, even if a person in authority are telling me to do so.