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Perils Of Obedience Stanley Milgram Analysis

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Summary and Analysis of "Perils of Obedience" by Stanley Milgram
Summary
The "Perils of Obedience" by Stanley Milgram details about the classic studies relating to obedience. The main study in focus is the Milgram’s Obedience study, conducted in the 1963 by the Yale University scientist Stanley Milgram. The experiment was designed by Milgram in such a way that participants are forced to obey the instructions of authority figure, even if they are immoral and also when such instructions cause pain/harm to another person. The participants selected for the experiment are ordinary people (Milgram, 630). The participants were willing to administer electric shocks to remaining people when ordered by authority figure. The Milgram experiment does not address the ethical concerns of testing and Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University, upon modifying the Milgram's setup found that situational factors result increased obedience in participants (Milgram, 631). The studies conducted by Burger and Milgram showed under a specific set of circumstances, the …show more content…

People are ready to give electric shocks to others when given orders by authority figures and only few of them opposed such shocks. The participants in the experiments conducted by Milgram and Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University (follow-on study) are basically obedient to the researcher due the situational factors. The research showed that the commands given by authority figure overrides conscience of people and only few people like Plato, who have rational thinking could counter such authority influence. The thesis of the article is that “People with authority can transform ordinary people to agents of terror and the high level willingness of the participants to take to any step as suggested by the authority basing on the command of the authority assumes

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