The Milgram experiment of the 1960s was designed to ascertain why so many Germans decided to support the Nazi cause. It sought to determine if people would be willing to contradict their conscience if they were commanded to do so by someone in authority. This was done with a psychologist commanding a teacher to administer an electric shock to a student each time a question was answered incorrectly. The results of the Milgram experiment help to explain why so many men in Nazi Germany were recruited to support the Nazi cause and serve as a warning against the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques by the United States government. The Milgram experiment was designed and performed by Yale University social psychologist Stanley Milgram in …show more content…
Milgram’s experiment sought to determine if a person would be obedient to an authoritative figure if the latter demanded that physical pain be inflicted upon another person as punishment. Milgram’s experiment consisted of three people: a teacher, a student, and an authoritative figure, or “experimenter.” Each person who volunteered for the experiment was given the role of the teacher. The teacher was instructed to punish the student by inflicting an increasingly stronger electric shock every time the student answered a question incorrectly. However, the teacher only believed that he or she was administering shocks. In reality, the student was not being harmed at all. This illusion was made complete by the student in the adjoining room banging on the wall and screaming, seemingly in pain. Once the administered shock reached the three hundred volt level, the student stopped responding, and the experimenter encouraged the teacher to continue increasing the shock level up to four hundred fifty volts. If the person acting as the teacher wished to stop the experiment, he or she was repeatedly prompted by the experimenter to continue (Cherry). Of the forty people involved in the experiment, sixty-five percent of them delivered the maximum shock, despite the fact that they thought they were causing intense pain to the student. Additionally, although the participants seemed to experience growing agitation and stress as a result of
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
During the experiment, if the teacher said that they did not wish to continue, the experimenter encouraged them to go on. He said that it was vital that they proceed until the test was over. Baumrind brings up a good point by suggesting that Milgram’s comparison of SS men in Nazi Germany to the teacher is faulty. Although they both instructed their “teachers” on what to do and made it seem as though the victims deserved what they were getting, the SS men would not have perceived their authority figures as benign researchers in a lab. The SS men were led to believe that their victims were unimportant not even worthy of consideration. She alleges this by saying, “He did not need to feel guilt or conflict because within his frame of reference he was acting rightly” (Baumrind 228), which describes how the SS men felt while torturing their victims.
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.
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).
Compared to the Milgram Experiment, one could easily argue that the prisoners suffered from far more anxiety and trauma that the “teachers” who instituted electrical shocks. However, as one might hate as much to admit, but the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment outweigh the risks. Not only did it bring to light many natural tendencies and moral issues of human beings, but also that it was this experiment, along with the Milgram Experiment, the revolutionized the ethical guidelines of human experimentation. While these two experiments may be considered among the darkest experiments in the history of psychology, it is important to acknowledge what they have also brought to
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 Milgram Experiment is one of the most famous studies in psychology. It was carried out by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist from Yale University. The purpose of the experiment was to study how far people would go in obeying an instruction from an authority figure if it involved hurting another person. Milgram wanted to study whether Germans were more obedient to authority as this was what people believed was the main reason for Nazi killings in World War II. 40 males were chosen to participate in the study, and were paid $4.50 for attending. The experiment was carried out as follows:
Is Milgram justified in detailing a possible connection between his experiment and the Holocaust shortly after it happened? Diana Baumrind inclines towards disagreeing with him; however, she is not immediately discernible on whether she agrees with him which detracts from her overall effectivity. Baumrind believes Milgram’s subjects were concerned about their victims thus breaking the parallel between his experiment and the genocide in the Holocaust (Baumrind 93). A recollection of chronological events of the Holocaust created by the University of South Florida effectually refutes Baumrind’s belief by stating the “death camps proved to be a less personal method for killing Jews” (Florida Center for Instructional Technology). If the Nazis were making the death camps less personal, then Milgram is justified in providing the Nazis as examples in his experiment report because if his subjects continued to obey when they were concerned with the victims, then why would they reverse their decision to obey if the victim was made less personal? Milgram could have been slightly more effective and fair by acknowledging the difference between his experiment and Nazi Germany in that in his experiment the subject had no interaction with the experimenter beforehand while the Nazi Party built obedience towards them for almost a decade before they started to systematically abuse the power of
Although no such experiment can be 100% conclusive, the Milgram experiments do shed considerable (and disturbing) light on the behavior of ordinary people in obedience of authority. They also explain, to a large extent, the seemingly perplexing behavior of many ordinary Germans during World War II and some American soldiers in Vietnam. (“Milgram,” Obedience to Authority..).
“Saul McLeod.” The Milgram Experiment, Saul Mcleod, 1 Jan. 1970, www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html. American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx?item=3. There were a lot of things wrong with The Milgram Experiment that needed to be changed to meet the APA's Code of Conduct. First “Principle E: Respect for People's Rights and Dignity” that something Milgram Experiment didn’t have, again when the participant wanted to quit the scientist wanted to continue with the experiment not caring to see if the subject was alright or alive. Participants were 40 males, aged between 20 and 50, there were 30 switches on the shock generator, as a result, each time when the subject makes a mistake, increasing the level of electric shock that can easily harm them. If the participants refused to administer a shock or can’t continue they were giving prods to ensure they continued. My conclusion The Milgram Experiment is that I understand people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even though of harming an innocent human being. People tend to obey orders whatever they are told too and believe whoever is telling them what to
The two experiments were a tested at different time periods and for different purposes. For instance, the Milgram experiment was originally tested to study obedience to authority, in response to Adolf Eichmann trial, a Nazi war criminal, that stated he,” was just stating orders under the Reich.” The experiment proved to be that under authority rule, actions, even if morally wrong and unethical can be still taken forward with due to a strict authority presence.
Milgram (1963) was possessed with inquisitive about how far people would run in agreeing to a course in case it included harming another person. Stanley Milgram was enthused about how adequately regular people could be influenced into submitting anathemas for example, Germans in WWII. The method of consistence to master while fundamental administration is a most adversarial and disturbing example that has surrounded bit of mental examinations. One such examination which has been done in different assortments over the world is: Milligram attempt, which focuses on a champion among the most fundamental mental slants find in human be The celebrated Milligram cerebrum science tests, finished in the 1960s, anticipated that
Stanley Milgram conducted one of the most controversial psychological experiments of all time: the Milgram Experiment. Milgram was born in a New York hospital to parents that immigrated from Germany. The Holocaust sparked his interest for most of his young life because as he stated, he should have been born into a “German-speaking Jewish community” and “died in a gas chamber.” Milgram soon realized that the only way the “inhumane policies” of the Holocaust could occur, was if a large amount of people “obeyed orders” (Romm, 2015). This influenced the hypothesis of the experiment. How much pain would someone be willing to inflict on another just because an authority figure urged them to do so? The experiment involved a teacher who would ask questions to a concealed learner and a shock system. If the learner answered incorrectly, he would receive a shock. Milgram conducted the experiment many times over the course of 2 years, but the most well-known trial included 65% of participants who were willing to continue until they reached the fatal shock of 450 volts (Romm, 2015). The results of his experiment were so shocking that many people called Milgram’s experiment “unethical.”
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.
The Milgram experiment is probably one of the most well-known experiments of the psy-sciences. (De Vos, J. (2009). Stanley Milgram was a psychologist from Yale University. He conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. Milgram wanted to investigate whether Germans were particularly obedient to authority figures as this was a common explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II. Milgram selected people for his experiment by newspaper advertising. He looked for male participants to take part in a study of learning at Yale University.