The Perils Of Obedience Stanley Milgram Analysis

(2009) replicates Milgram’s infamous obedience experiment in order to explore the concept of obedience in modern society. According to Burger (2009), although Milgram’s obedience studies pushed ethical boundaries, the results from his experiments had a profound effect on social psychology in regards to obedience (p.1). In the article, Burger argues against the claim that the Milgram experiment psychologically damaged its participants. In response to critiques he states that the results from the follow-up questionnaires Milgram gave to the participants show that they were happy to have taken part in the study. Nevertheless, Milgrams study generated a debate about

In his short article Do Good People Turn Evil?, Doctor Adam Grant suggested that researchers might have drawn the wrong conclusions from both Stanley Milgram’s “obedience” experiments, and Philip Zimbardo’s infamous Stanford Prison Experiment.

With each incorrect answer, the voltage of the electric shock would increase, beginning at a voltage of 15 volts to a deadly voltage of 450 volts. However, the experiment was most definitely rigged. The learners were hired actors used as part of the experiment to determine whether the teacher (one of the 40 male participants) would continue to obey the commands of the experimenter despite the blood chilling screams from the opposite room.  Milgram further explains in detail why the reasoning behind his experiment is surprisingly valid. The most important information of Milgram’s article provides a table recording the different variations of shock levels, beginning from slight shock to XXX. The different levels of shock voltages are measured from 15 volts to 450 volts. The right side of the table attributes to number of teachers who found the corresponding voltage as their maximum shock. A majority of the teachers did not identify a maximum shock until 300 volts was reached. At this point, various teachers discontinued the experiment and refused to participate further. However, Milgram states “of the 40 subjects, 26 obeyed the orders of the experimenter until the end, proceeding to punish the victim until they reached the most potent shock available on the shock generator”(376). Milgram’s data shows that 65 percent of the men chosen, decided to inflict the highest pain threshold upon

In 1962, Stanley Milgram, a Social Relations professor at Yale University conducted an experiment on the internal struggle between a person’s innate obedience to authority and their standards of morality. Milgram was intrigued by former Nazi officers justifying their horrific actions with the excuse that they were merely following orders. Milgram’s experiment, heavily reliant on unknowing participants, recruited 40 male individuals aged 20-50 years old--with a preference for individuals who were not educated--with a newspaper ad that promised four dollars as payment for their contribution to memory research. Subjects were led into the test area in pairs, accompanied by an experimenter, and paid immediately. The

On the issue of how the participants were treated in Milgram’s study, Baumrind believes the subjects were mistreated and may have been left with permanent mental damage. She claims not having told the subjects’ place in the study, Milgram deceives them and therefore is to be held responsible for their care. Milgram shows this when the teachers begin to refuse to continue the experiment, instead of ending the experiment, he encourages them to continue. Forcing them to believe they were inflicting severe pain on another person is unethical according to Baumrind. She also suspects the setting has an effect on the mind when she states, “Because of the anxiety and passivity generated by the setting, the subject is more prone to behave in an obedient, suggestible manner in the laboratory than elsewhere (Baumrind p.421). This thought is proven by Milgram’s analysis of how the

Furthermore the ability to distance themselves from their actions played a substantial role in obedience. When in close proximity with the victim less people obeyed authorities commands. Milgram concludes that distance from the victim reduces strain to the aggressor (Milgram 96). This suggests why the Germans used gas chambers to kill; to distance victims from the Nazis, thus minimizing the emotional stress on the aggressors. In both Milgram’s experiments and Nazi executions, distance between victims and the aggressors, allowed the aggressors to feel less responsible for their actions. It was perceived that subjects displaced “personal responsibility for their actions on to others,” (Russel and Gregory 2). Due to the moral conflict, the subjects concluded that all the blame is that of the authority. The subjects did not have any personal feelings of hatred towards the victim, thus they are not liable for their actions. In Adolf Eichmann’s final plea at Nuremburg he also displaces the blame stating “the guilt for the mass murder is solely that of the political leaders,” (Eichamm’s final plea). This is a compelling parallel between the subjects of Milgram’s experiments and the

In the 1960 's, Stanley Milgram, a Yale professor, conducted an experiment that sparked intense controversy throughout the nation. Milgram attempted to pinpoint evil in its rawest form: this was achieved by placing an ordinary person, called the "teacher", in a situation in which an instructor pressured the subject to shock another person, called the learner. Despite hearing the progressively agonizing screams of the learner, the teacher continued to comply with the directives given by the instructor, thereby selecting obedience over morality. While this experiment was revered and praised by many scientists and psychologists, it was also ridiculed by others. One psychologist that holds the Milgram experiment in extreme contempt is Diana Baumrind, a leading parenting phycologist. She expressed in her article, Review of Stanley Milgram 's Experiments on Obedience, that the experiment was administered by a detached and calculating man whom of which took pleasure in emotionally damaging his subjects. She provides the reader with an emotional perspective in regards to the Milgram experiments. Additionally, critical psychologist Ian Parker describes in his article, Obedience, not only the inhumanity of the experiment, but also the lack of scientific evidence that Milgram uses to support his experiment; in addition, Parker cites multiple sources that support his claims against this incredible experiment. His critique also analytically depicts the repercussions Milgram faced

Milgrams study proved it is easier to resist orders from an authority figure if they are not close by. In the study when the experimenter instructed and prompted the teacher by telephone from another room, obedience decreased to 20.5%. As opposed to the 65% which was the obedience rate in the original experiment. Other studies that show legitimate authority plays a vital role when talking about obedience are, Bickman (1974) and Bushman (1988). Both studies show how members of the public are more likely to obey to a request from someone in uniform, as opposed to someone without again linking in with legitimate authority.

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,

Synthesis Essay: Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiments Nobody would want to hurt another human being. It would be horrible to know someone wanted to willingly hurt someone. Stanley Milgram, an American psychologist, conducted an experiment on obedience during the time he was a professor at Yale University. His experiment was surrounded by the idea of authority.

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.

Milgram began his experiment by soliciting subjects aged from twenty to fifty, from all backgrounds under the guise of a simple memory experiment (Milgram, Obedience 15). By Milgram keeping the true study under wraps he was able to study subjects reactions with minimum bias towards the actual experiment. Milgram told those participating in the faux study that they were to act as teachers and assist in teaching a student a list of paired words. What the subject was unaware of however was that the student was actually in on the true experiment and was trained in order to test their reactions (Milgram, Obedience 16). So it went that whenever the student guessed the word pair wrong the teacher, in this case the subject, was instructed to flip a switch on a panel that they were led to believe would shock the student. They believed the experiment was to reinforce memory through punishment. After every “shock,” the subject was told to increase the intensity from 15 to 450 volts in a sequence of 30 switches they were labeled as the following for the subjects to avoid confusion: Slight Shock, Moderate Shock, Strong Shock, Very Strong Shock, Intense Shock, Extreme Intensity Shock, Danger Severe Shock, and XXX (Milgram, Behavioral).

Known as the man who shocked the world, Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments that changed the way power of authority was viewed. A few psychologists have declared that Milgram 's experiment was eye-opening, but others have also stated that his experiment verified nothing about obedience. As the author of the article "Obedience," Ian Parker critiques Milgram 's experiment claiming that it had its faults; for example, his conclusions failed to prove his theory on the occurrence of the Holocaust (Parker 102). With his multiple sources, Parker validates his statements about the Holocaust, and as well as the unethical treatment Milgram 's subjects received after the experiment, abandoning them with inner issues. Diana Baumrind, a fellow psychologist, assess the Milgram Experiment in her article "Review of Stanley Milgram 's Experiments on Obedience" and insists the format in which the experiment was conducted was inaccurate in numerous ways. Baumrind additionally identifies the unprofessional management of the emotional state the test subjects were left in after conducting the experiment (Baumrind 92). She also discusses the comparison between the Holocaust and the experiment that Milgram had concluded, siding with Parker and agrees that it does not lead to any conclusions. Both Parker and Baumrind logically generate claims about the Milgram Experiment and his theories that change the way it is viewed.

This essay will outline Milgram’s experiment of obedience and outline ethical issues relating to it. Before outlining Milgram’s experiment this essay will look at Milgram himself. ‘Stanley Milgram was born in New York in 1933. A graduate of Queens College and Harvard University, he taught social psychology at Yale and Harvard Universities before become a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Centre of the City University Of New York.’ (Zimbardo, 2010)

Stanley Milgram conducted a obedience study. He had a teacher and a learner. The teacher would read a sentence and the learner had to repeat the right word pair. If the learner were to get the wrong word pair the teacher would have to shock the learner. There was the a twist the learner and the professor were working together to see how far the teacher was willing to continue shocking the learner, when the learner was clearly in pain. Many of the teachers refused to go on after the learner continuously yelled and begged for the teacher to stop shocking them. Fifty percent of the teachers followed all the way through and followed the experimenter’s instructions. They were worried at first when the learner would bring up the heart problem and