Social Influences And Its Impact On Society

The first reason that Milgram found that people obey is because people feel like they have to obey someone if they have a high social status or a highly respected job, this is called legitimate authority. Bickman (1974) supported this theory by doing an experiment on the streets of New York. Bickman had three men dress up as a policeman, a guard and a regular passerby in a shirt and tie, he then had the three men ask other passerby’s to either pay a parking fine or pick something of the floor, it was found that

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

Society is based upon those who lead and those who follow. Typically people will go as far as harming innocent people in order to please authority. Events such as mass genocides and massacres, happen due to people’s strong willingness follow authority they will perpetrate these horrendous acts. From the outside perspective, it seems as though these events should be obviously avoidable. However, it is difficult to imagine being in the position of either going against personal morals or following authority. Milgram decided to test the theory of how far a person will go to satisfy authority. Although society is skeptical to accept the validity of Milgram’s results, the event that occurred in My Lai proves his results.

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.

Miles Hewstone, who earned his PhD in social psychology from the University of Oxford, would concur, stating, “This evidence tends to rule out… the possibility that participants were sadists” (Hewstone 267). Milgram links these ordinary people to the soldiers and Nazi officials who carried out the Holocaust. Although this argument has partial merit, Milgram’s ineffectiveness, is tied to his failure to address the differences between the two groups. Baumrind effectively addresses this gap in Milgram’s logic; she states that the German soldier or SS officer had, unlike the subjects in Milgram’s experiment, no reason to believe that their superiors or authority figures were “benignly disposed towards himself or their victims” (Baumrind 93). Not only was the relation between the authority and the subject different, but the relation between the subject and the “victim” was as well. In Milgram’s experiment, the learner was an equal to the subject, while in Nazi Germany, the victims were viewed by the soldiers as sub-human. Baumrind accurately suggests that these altered relationships removed any of the guilt felt by Milgram’s subjects from the conscience of the German soldiers. Thomas Blass, who was an American social psychologist, Holocaust survivor, and author of the first published biography of Milgram, would add to Baumrind’s stance, stating, “Milgram’s approach does not provide a

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

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.

Stanley Milgram is a famous psychologist who focused his studies on authority and peoples reaction and obedience to it. His famous experiment and it's results were groundbreaking in psychology, surprising both psychologists and regular people alike. First I will discuss the reason for Milgrims study of obedience to authority. Then I will explain the experiment, its formulation, and its results. Finally I will cover the influence of the experiment on psychology and society.

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

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.

Those who did not witness these authorities wondered how millions of people could obey and kill millions of innocent people or how many could watch this happening to others and do nothing about. Thus, the inspiration for Milgram’s

Milgram assumes that the individuals are surrendering their suppositions and individual great regards to the authority figure. Standard people are most likely going to take after solicitations given by a master figure, even to the level of executing an unadulterated individual. It was his willingness to see how far people will go when it came down to listen to authority. How obedient will they be? What if they are put in a situation they are not comfortable with? Will they still be willing to obey? And if they do, what will be their limit and how will they react to the authority? Accommodation to master is imparted within each one of us from the way we are raised.

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.

Stanley Milgram, a famous social psychologist, and student of Solomon Asch, conducted a controversial experiment in 1961, investigating obedience to authority (1974). The experiment was held to see if a subject would do something an authority figure tells them, even if it conflicts with their personal beliefs and morals. He even once said, "The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act (Cherry).” This essay will go over what Milgram’s intent was in this experiment and what it really did for society.