Stanley Milgram's Obedience

In The Perils of Obedience, Stanley Milgram introduces us to his experimental studies on the conflict between one’s own conscience and obedience to authority. From these experiments, Milgram discovered that a lot of people will obey a figure in authority; irrespective of the task given - even if it goes against their own moral belief and values. Milgram’s decision to conduct these experiments was to investigate the role of Adolf Eichmann (who played a major part in the Holocaust) and ascertain if his actions were based on the fact that he was just following orders; as most Germans accused of being guilty for war crimes commonly explained that they were only being obedient to persons in higher authority.

When Mrs. Brant started with the experiment she had no problem with it at first. After starting to hear the learner's sounds of agony, she turned to the experimenter questioning him if she should continue; the experimenter without hesitation commanded her to do so. A second later she asked him again, then remarking firmly. She discussed with the experimenter about the learner's medical condition. In this particular case the learner has heart problems. The experimenter explained to Mrs. Brant that the shocks may be painful but they are not dangerous and again asked her to continue with the experiment. At that point she was not willing to ask the experimenter to stop anymore; she then wanted to ask the learner himself. She told the experimenter that she would continue only if the learner wished to. The experimenter once again told her she had no choice and that she was obligated to continue. She then refused to go further and the experiment was terminated.

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 subjects of the experiment believed that they were taking part in a study on the relationship of learning and punishment. The subject would sit in a room and ask questions to an actor in another room, who was supposed to be another subject. In front of the questioner was a box that had a series of buttons labeled from 15 volts to 450 volts. The subject was told to shock the person every time they answered incorrectly, increasing the voltage each time. As the shocks got worse, the actor would make noise, bang on the wall, yell for help, etc. but the researcher would tell the subject to keep going. Milgrim found, contrary to many psychologists predictions, that sixty-five percent of the subjects delivered the shocks all the way up to 450 volts (Slater).

Stanley Milgram writes about his shocking experiment in “Perils of Obedience.” Milgram writes on the behaviors that the people had during the experiment. Milgram had an experiment that involves two people. One person was a student and the other a teacher. The student was strapped into an electric chair and was required to answer certain questions. The teacher asked a certain word, and the student must know the pair that goes with it. If the student answered the question incorrectly, the teacher must shock the student. Each time the student answered a question incorrectly, the volts increase. Milgram was expecting the teachers to back out of the experiment once they saw the student in pain for the first time, but surprisingly enough, more than sixty percent of the teachers obeyed the experimenter and continued on with the experiment, reaching up to four-hundred-fifty volts. After three times of the four-hundred-fifty volt shock, the experiment was called to halt.

The Excerpt “The Peril of Obedience by Stanley Milgram discusses an experiment testing on individuals through cruel and unmoral experiments. After reading Milgram’s text about the experiments conducted to see if individuals would compile with authority even if the command was unmoral. Stanley Milgram, an excerpt From “The Perils of obedience”, states that Milgram is making the following statement concerning the condition of the experiment: “This condition of the experiment undermines another commonly offered explanation of the subjects’ behavior- that those who shocked the victim at the most severe levels came only from sadistic fringe of society” (Milgram 699). By stating this Milgram explains that even if it means harming other human beings

In his article “The Perils of Obedience”, Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment to determine if the innate desire to obey an authority figure overrides the morality and consciousness that had been already established in an individual. After Milgram conducted his experiments he concluded that 60% of the subjects complied to an authority figure rather than their own morals. There was additional testing outside the US which showed an even higher compliance rate. Milgram reasoned that the subjects enjoyed the gratification from the experimenter, who was the authority figure in the experiment. He noted that most of the subjects are "proud" to carry out the demands of the experimenter. Milgram believed for this was the reason, why the German

The participant believed he was delivering real shocks, but the learner was a confederate who pretended to be shocked. Once the 300 volt level was reached the learner would bang the wall and demand to be released, or become silent and refuse to answer questions. The experimenter instructed the teacher to treat this as an incorrect response and to deliver a further shock. Out of the 40 participants, 26 delivered the maximum shocks while 14 stopped before reaching the higher levels. Many of the participants became extremely agitated, distraught and angry at the experimenter (Cherry,

After WW2 was over in 1945, Nazi soldiers were rounded up and put on trial for their killings. For most of the soldiers put on trial, their excuse for killing people was that they were following orders. With this idea in the back of his mind, a social psychologist by the name of Stanley Milgram created an experiment to figure out how obedient a person really was to their authority figure. According to Kristen Fescoe, a publisher of the Online Psychology Degree Guide, the Milgram experiment is one of the 25 most influential psychological experiments in history because of its enduring impact in the psychological community. This essay reveals what the experiment was for and how it affected the world.

At this point, the Teacher and Learner were separated into different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. The Teacher was then given an electric shock from the electro-shock generator as a sample what the Learner would supposedly to receive during the experiment. After the Teacher was given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the Learner. The Teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. To respond the Learner would press a button to indicate their answer, if the answer was wrong the teacher would shock the Learner with the voltage increasing by 15-volts for each wrong answer, if correct the Teacher would read the next word pair. The subjects believed that for each wrong answer the Learner was receiving actual shocks. In reality, there were no shocks. After a series of wrong answers the Learner would start complaining about their heart, afterwards there would be no response from the Learner at all. Many people indicated their desire to stop the experiment and check on the learner at this point in the experiment. Some paused at 135 volts and began to question the purpose of the experiment, while most continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible. A few subjects even began to laugh nervously or exhibit other signs of extreme stress when they heard the screams of the

Gary Taylor Psychology Essay On, The Milgram Experiment Stanley Milgram conducted the first of a series of very famous psychological experiments In 1961 that was created to gauge people’s level of obedience to an authority figure. What happens when you put a person’s conscience against the orders of an authority figure? In the words of Milgram, “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders?” His setup was fairly basic.

The man in the chair was required to learn a list of words, and his goal would be while strapped to the electric chair to recall the paired word. The paid participant was then given four choices while the actor mainly gave wrong answers in return resulting in electric shock. The catch was there really was no shock, and it was just a mind trick played on the man giving the choices. If the teacher began to hesitate the experimenter would list of four statements in a row. These statements consisted of: “Please continue”, “The experiment requires you to continue”, “It is absolutely essential that you continue”, and finally “You have no other choice but to

This experiment was a test of obedience, whether goodness mastered, and whether the results could explain war and other ills of the world. The experiment itself was simple, there would be an authority figure who give the volunteer orders to follow during the experiment to test the obedience of the volunteer. There were three roles in this experiment: the experimenter who would give orders to the volunteer, the teacher who was the volunteer and was supposed to follow the orders of the experimenter, and the learner who was an actor who was supposed to be punished by the teacher. The teacher is this experiment is supposed to shock the learner on the orders of the experimenter when the learner did something wrong. The teacher did not give any actual electric shocks to the learner as they were told but was lead into think they did so.

Milgram’s shocking obedience study tested the effects of authority on the obedience of the average person (Brannigan 2013). Milgram recruited 40 men via the newspaper; these men receive compensation of $4.50 for their participation (Brannigan 2013). Milgram asked Yale students to predict the outcome of this test; students stated that no more than 3 out of 100 would deliver the maximum XXX shock (Brannigan 2013). Each participant assumed the role of “the teacher” while a confederate of the experiment assumed the role of “the student”. The authority figure in this study is the experimenter; he will instruct the teacher throughout the testing process. The experimenter informs the participants that the shocks they will be delivering would range from 30 volts to 450 volts. The shocks are painful with the fatal potential. The experimenter instructs the teacher to deliver a shock each time the student makes a mistake. The voltages marked from a slight shock, medium shock, dangerous severe shock and the maximum level simply labeled XXX (Brannigan 2013). The students were to act as if they are hurting from the shock, screaming, begging and even claiming a heart condition for relief. When a teacher became reluctant to continue the experimenter would call them by name and give a standard prod designed to challenge the

Milgram was working as a professor at Yale University, when he began conducting a series of experiments that focused on the conflict between personal conscience and obeying authority (Cherry, 2004). At the time, many people were accused of affiliating with Nazis during World War II. A popular justification given by those on trial was that they were only following orders. The study began just one year after Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem. Milgram’s experiment was devised 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?" (McLeod, 2007).