Obedience Research Papers

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

In social psychology, social influence is a process where someone’s beliefs, thoughts and behaviour change by being exposed to beliefs, thoughts and opinions of others. It manifests in several forms, such as obedience, compliance and conformity. All these types of social influence have been studied by numerous researchers who investigated the reasons why people conform to social norms and obey to authorities, such as Milgram’s classic studies on obedience. His experiments support the popular idea of ‘banality of evil’ –Hannah Arendt (1963)’s famous phrase referring to the capability to accomplish dreadful things out of banal reasons–, revealing that people conform submissively and thoughtlessly to the orders that authorities deliver, no

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 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.

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

Following results of his world famous obedience studies, Milgram developed his own theory of why people obey a malevolent authority – “agentic shift”. Milgram findings led him to believe a person can be in one of two psychological state at any particular time, and the “agentic shift” is what causes ordinary people to follow orders because they believed the experimenter has a legitimate authority. Milgram believed people acted without thinking, irrespective of their own beliefs - the participants were obliged to do as the experimenter said because of the experimenters “authority”. However other researchers such as Blass (1999) and Reicher and Haslam (2011) broadened the outlook

The four concepts of obedience, normative influence, communal reinforcement, and self-serving bias all contributed to the mass murders committed by the perpetrators of the Holocaust. While they are all interconnected and one can lead to the other, they all have strong and individual consequences. As shown by Eichmann and Himmler, it is dangerous when people are so obedient towards others that they can't stop to think about their morals or beliefs. When people don’t stand up for their values and what they think is right, they can transform into a perpetrator instead of an upstander. The men and women that followed the beliefs of the Nazi leaders during Holocaust and conformed to Hitler’s ideas were a huge contributor in the deaths of millions of innocent people. Unfortunately, being manipulated by these psychological tendencies led to one of most atrocious mass killings in the history of the world. Still, these concepts occur every day in a variety of ways. When students go along with what teachers, parents, or other authority figures suggest, they are giving up their rights to a certain extent by going along with what they tell them. In a classroom environment, kids can become “teacher’s pets” if they want to be accepted or acknowledged by their teachers in a very positive way. This is an example of a lesser degree of normative influence. Although it doesn’t

Since the terrorist attack on Paris, to the natural disasters in Haiti; there have been a variety of tragic events that have occurred throughout history across the world. Perhaps one main tragedy that leaves people feeling baffled is the Holocaust. Eric Lichtblau described the Holocaust in his article, The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking, as a genocide in which Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and its associates killed approximately six million Jewish people because the Nazis believed that exterminating the Jewish people was justified. They believed this for the reason that Jewish people were not only a “low” and “evil” race, but were affecting the lives of the Germans negatively and blamed them for all the social and economic problems in Germany (Lichtblau). The puzzling part is what would make an authoritative figure, such as Adolf Hitler; do such an atrocious thing to a group of people? Social psychologist Stanley Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority in 1963 analyzed what makes people obedient to an authority. Milgram’s experiment found that factors such as the authority figure, the use of deception and the agentic state of the person can further explain why people obeyed Hitler to the point that induced the Holocaust.

From the terrorist attack on Paris, to the natural disasters in Haiti; there have been a variety of tragic events that have occurred throughout history across the world. Perhaps one main tragedy that leaves people feeling baffled is the Holocaust. Eric Lichtblau described the Holocaust in his article, The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking, as a genocide in which Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and its associates killed around six million Jewish people because the Nazis believed that exterminating the Jewish people was justified. They believed this for the reason that Jewish people were not only a “low” and “evil” race, but were affecting the lives of the Germans negatively and blamed them for all the social and economic problems in Germany (Lichtblau). The puzzling part is what would make an authoritative figure, such as Adolf Hitler; do such an atrocious thing to a group of people? Social psychologist Stanley Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority in 1963 analyzed what makes people obey orders. Milgram’s experiment found that factors such as the authority figure, the use of deception and the agentic state of the person can further explain why people obeyed Hitler to the point that induced the Holocaust.

Milgrams research sought had two determinants as reported by Blass (1998). First, Milgram attempted to account for the holocaust and secondly, he intended to use the Asch’s technique for studying conformity to behavior of greater human consequences. In this research study, it was found out that an average of group of men would readily inflict painful and electric shocks on harmless victims whose actions did not call for such harsh treatments. The

In the intro of “Obedience to Authority,” Milgram aptly points out that “some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living”(Milgram 1). This is a universal human truth. Authority is something that humanity, from the beginning of time, has consistently relied upon. Milgram argues that “obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose” and that it is the “dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority” (Milgram 1). I argue that obedience is as instinctual as the flight or fight mechanism of the brain.

“Obedience is a form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual, who is usually an authority figure,” thus occurring in Stanley Milgram’s experiment (McLeod). Stanley Milgram wanted to explain why “SS officers had shot, gassed, noosed, and otherwise tortured twelve million people to death, supposedly on order from their commanders in chief” (Slater 31). The explanation the public settled for the reason of the SS officers’ actions was because of the “notion of “the authoritarian personality,” which hypothesized that certain kinds of childhood experiences of a strict, Teutonic cast produced people who would do anything to anyone if instructed” (Slater 31). However, Stanley Milgram knew that, they could not completely explain the actions of the SS officers. To him it was too narrow “he purportedly believed the answer to destructive obedience lay less in the power of personality and more in the power of situation” (Slater 31).

Social influence refers to a change in behaviour that is caused by the influence of the other, whether intentional or not, from a result of how the individual perceives themselves in relation to the group, society or individual who influenced them. According to Milgram, there are three areas of social influence, which are conformity, compliance and obedience. Conformity refers to changing one's own behaviour to match the behaviour of others, this plays a major role in the sense of belonging and esteem. An instance of this would be evident from Milgram's study. In 1963, Stanley Milgram, wanted to conduct a research to determine the reasoning as to why Germans were willing to obey to Adolf Hitler's commands and dictations. This is because these people chose

People can commit heinous acts without being heinous people when placed under authority, according to Stanley Milgram’s conclusions from his experiment. In the article “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience” written by Diana Baumrind, a psychologist who worked at the Institute of Human Development, she refutes Milgram’s claims by focusing on the ethical issues and the overall relevancy of the trial. Baumrind commences her article by arguing that Milgram mistreated and distressed his subjects, thus causing psychological harm. Additionally, she attempts to dispel the correspondence between the Milgram experiment and the Holocaust, she and suggests variables that could have altered the results (Baumrind 93-94). Ian Parker, a British

Human behavior demonstrates that people will conform to others as well as obey others with authority. As shown in the book, “Ordinary Men”, and in the Milgram experiment, these factors will greatly affect what people will do. When one sees others doing something that they might be against, it is still highly probable that they will follow the trend due to conformity. Likewise, if an authoritative figure orders one to do something that they are against, they will still obey due to obedience. During the Holocaust, many people were affected by these two factors, including the employees at the German railway network. Though their jobs ranged from desk workers to engineers to department specialists, all of them knew about what they were doing. Consequently,