Stanley Milgram's Obedience To Authority Experiments

Milgram conducted an experiment on obedience to authority. His influence came from the second world war, where Nazi’s committed evil crimes and were part of the mass murder of thousands of Jews. Milgram wanted to know what influences people to do evil things like this, and whether it is due to ‘just following orders’ from an authority figure. Slater et al attempted to replicate Milgram’s (1963) study of obedience using a virtual environment. In this essay, I will discuss the similarities and differences between these studies, using evidence to support my points.

“The Perils of Obedience” was written by Stanley Milgram in 1974. In the essay he describes his experiments on obedience to authority. I feel as though this is a great psychology essay and will be used in psychology 101 classes for generations to come. The essay describes how people are willing to do almost anything that they are told no matter how immoral the action is or how much pain it may cause.

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.

In her article, “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience”, psychologist Diana Baumrind criticizes Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience to authority, stating that not only were Milgram’s experiments unethical but so was the scientist himself, claiming that he did not take appropriate measures to properly ensure his subject’s wellbeing post-experiment and therefore, experiments such as these should not be repeated. Baumrind does address an important point in her review and that is the responsibility of psychologists to ensure that their subjects are treated fairly and ethically but this is overshadowed by the fact that Baumrind’s argument is one rooted in pathos with little evidence to support her claims while being

Effectively critiquing Milgram's experiment and subsequent work, Baumrind illuminates why Milgram's comparison is unfair. She poignantly points out that in the eyes of the Nazis Jews were perceived as subhuman, so the Nazis executing the Jews did not feel guilt (Baumrind 93). In Milgram's experiment the subjects were greatly distressed about what they were executing, and in more recent variations of Milgram's experiment, subjects admitted to experiencing guilt about what they had performed (Carey). Parker also effectively conveys a similar point by quoting Professor Daniel Goldhagen of Harvard University. Goldhagen says, "If you think that certain people are evil and that it's necessary to do away with them--if you hate them--then someone orders you to kill them, you're not carrying out the deed only because of the order. You're carrying it out because you think it's right" (Parker 102). University of Maryland professor, Thomas Blass, would agree with Parker's effective quotation of Goldhagen. He thinks Milgram's approach to the motives of the Nazis "falls short when it comes to explaining the more zealous, hate-driven cruelties that also defined the Holocaust"

In the movie The Experimenter, we saw Stanley Milgram’s famous experiment. The objective of his experiment was to see if authority affects people, if they will so something they are not willing to do just because of the authority. The hypothesis was that authority definitely has an influence on people doings. In the experiment, the people did not want to continue “shocking” the person in the other room but, because they apparent doctor would say to continue on they would do so. Milgram is Jewish which is what brought him to making this experiment happen. The basis of the research is he wanted to examine justifications for acts of genocide offered by those accused at the World War II, Nuremberg War Criminal trials. Their defense often was based on "obedience" - that they were just following orders from their superiors.

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.

The Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment applies to morally right behaviors. The man sending the electric shocks knew it wasn’t right to torture the other one by getting the questions incorrect. So he wanted to call it quits, due to him knowing he was causing unreasonable pain to others, not knowing that the other person was an actor. The man suggested to stop but professor Milgram who is the authority figure encouraged him to continue, making him ignore the feeling of the wrong he was doing.

Stanley Milgram was a Yale psychologist that is famous for conducting the obedience experiments in 1961. Milgram had conducted a series of experiments during the 1960s that were related to obedience. The results of these experiments had demonstrated a disturbing yet powerful view into the power of authority that can exert from it some sort of obedience. Milgram’s experimentation had begun in 1961 after the trail of Adolph Eichmann has started slightly after World War II. Milgram was inspired by Eichmann’s defense’s premise that the man was simply following orders that resulted in the death of millions of Jews. Milgram conducted the experiment with the participation of forty men that were recruited through newspaper advertisement. Milgram had used paid participation method in which participants were paid a sum of $4.50. Milgram was to use a shock generator that started with 30 volts and increased with 15 volts up to the maximum of 450 volts. The main switches were labeled with terms such as: slight shock, moderate shock, danger, severe shock, and XXX. The participants were named as teachers who were to deliver a shock to students as punishment for incorrect answer to questions. The teacher participants had believed that they were delivering shock to students, but in actuality there was a bit of deception as students were just pretending to be shocked. With the progression of the experiment the teachers would hear the pleas of their participants to be released,

Stanley Milgram was disturbed by how easily people obeyed Hitler during World War II. He wanted to understand what made all of those people treat Jews so poorly in such a short amount of time. Milgram used this confusion to put together a well thought out experiment about obedience between a subject and a person of authority. This turned out to be one of the most influential experiments ever performed. He wanted to find out if people’s morality to others could outweigh their natural obedience to an authority figure. Milgram became a profound social psychologist through his background, experiment and his findings.

Pioneering Psychologist Stanley Milgram once said, “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process.” Obedience is like a narcotic; under its influence, even a strong willed person can do horrible things to others without a second thought. The only way a member of society submitting to powerful authority can escape being obedient is to live completely isolated. Subjects usually follow the orders given by a leader without a second thought, with many going the extra mile despite the mental and physical harm they could cause others. In order to satisfy an authority figure, people are willing to hurt mentally, abuse physically, or even murder others in cold blood because humans are born with the urge to comply an authoritarian figure.

Despite the reason, any man who compromised his ethical values to commit an atrocity against other human being, should be held responsible for his actions. One can say this, considering that a mature adults should know that one should obey authority, unless the actions, which are being prescribed by an authority will harm someone, For instance, when we accept a job position, e are selling our workforce not our volition and dignity. Therefore, no matter how high or important the authority figure is, a person should not harm others on behalf of being obedient and faithful to someone.

Stanley Milgram was a psychology professor at Yale University, a prestigious school in Connecticut. He was interested in why so many German people in the 1930s and 1940s had followed instructions which involved causing pain or killing innocent human beings. His experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments that measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Milgram first described his research in 1963 in an article published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology.

Stanley Milgram, one of the most influential social psychologists of his time was particularly fascinated by the dangers of group behaviors. His experiment is one of the most famous psychological studies in history. The aim of the experiment was to identify the effects of obedience under authority. An example of influential behavior is during the war years where thousands of Jews were prosecuted by the Nazi’s. Milgram wanted to look further into the Nazi’s behavior. The results

In the journal article “A Study of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram from Yale University 1963, many people from all occupations that heard about Milgram’s study have mixed feelings on whether or not the study was ethical. These debates on deciding if the study was ethical or not, more specifically lead to several questions regarding the participant’s psychological reactions and if they were provided a chance to withdraw from the study. The study’s  administrators used the power of an authority figure with wording and appearance to ensure the completion of the study. When reading the journal article myself, in my personal opinion I believe that the study was in fact ethical for various reasons.