The Perils of Obedience, by Stanley Milgram

Growing up my family has always thought me to be obedient, but also know the difference between what is right and wrong. I am not saying that my family or I am perfect, but I have always strived to do the right thing. I understand, in society today that we have jobs and responsibility, that sometimes it can compromise our principles, but like every person, we have certain boundaries that we just cannot let ourselves pass. In “The Perils of Obedience by Stanley Milgram, a study was conducted on several subjects to test their obedience and how far they would go to as the “teacher” to administer a shock to a “student “that the authority figure “experimenter” ordered them to give. Among the test subject was Gretchen Brandt, a thirty-one –year –old

The Milgram experiment is one of the most controversial psychology experiments of the past century. I was familiar with it prior to accessing the simulation on the elearning site from an ABC television Four Corners episode on the nature of torture. So when I participated in the simulation, I stopped administering the shock at the first sign of distress from the subject at thirty watts. If I was in the actual Milgram experiment I would like to believe that I would have behaved in the same way. Human nature dictates that we believe that only abnormal people are capable of sinister behavior. This belief that internal attributions cause certain behaviours assures us of some stability and security in our day-to-day lives and yet the

“Why is man so prone to obey?” People are herd animals because they realize that the power of solidarity can help them develop, and have strength to fight against difficulty. Therefore, they gather together to help each other and gradually become our society. Within a group or a society, there must be a leader and rules, which becomes government and laws. The government uses the laws to control and keep the society stable. In our society, people will be protected which makes them feel secure. In addition, they have to obey the laws to receive protection and not to be punished. Moreover, people can change their decision when they are under social pressure or traditional pressure. One thing is also important that if people have to take responsibilities

The results showed that two-thirds of the participants continued on as ordered to the 450volts and the other ones shocked the learner to 300 volts. Milgram tested 636 people in 18 different variations of the experiment. He changed location conditions, the number of teachers, whether or not the teacher (participant) was touched, and changed the clothing of the experimenter (put on a lab coat). Ordinary people can carry out orders or even cause extreme harm to another individual if given by a person of authority. Being obedient is ingrained into us from an early age.

In Chapter 2 of Opening Skinner's Box By Laurem Slater, The Milgram Experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram was to test people’s obedience to authority. The experiment entitled to shock another person if they got the answer wrong, gradually increasing the shock amount up till lethal shocks. For his findings 65% of the people were able to give another person lethal shocks simply by being instructed to by a man on a white coat. Milgram’s experiment created waves in the world, people questioned it, as it was not to prove anything, solely based on the situation, or even cause trauma to the volunteers. He died in the most ironic way, he suffered several heart attacks and finally one did it, he

Stanley Milgram a psychologist decided to test obedience and its effects on a human. The trial began with a recipient aka “teacher” willingly delivering shocks to “the student”. When in reality there was no “student”, but a voice recording that would project a man’s voice complaining he was in pain. The recipients at any moment could stop the whole procedure, and not carry on with the shocks if they wished. What Milgram and his colleague’s predicted was that recipients would stop after a certain amount of shocks. The concluding results were wrong; many actually went through all the way to 450 volts. When Milgram published his findings another psychologist by the name Diana Baumrind criticized Milgram proclaiming it was unethical. She argued

In the experiment there were two people selected one a “teacher’ who is the actual subject of the experiment and the other a “learner” who is an actor and in on the experiment. They were both then told that the teacher was to go into one room and read off a series of questions and administer electric shocks for every incorrect answer while the learner was to go into the other room and receive them however the learner wouldn’t really receive these painful electric shocks. The experiment has been reconducted over time to see if the outcome remains the same and since its initial inception the results have remained more or less the same with the outcome of many of the teachers doing what they are told and continuing the experiment. The Milgram experiment proves a powerful point in that we are taught to listen to commands and many of us do not question the person giving them even if it can result in displeasure for

They most likely come to the conclusion that the teachers were terrible people who were unethical because they went about shocking the learners for every mistake they made, but people who think this would be making the fundamental attribution error because they don’t know the teachers enough to essentially judge them. Also they also are not aware of any other details about the experiment, the people involved or what else the experiment consisted of. For example, they probably were not aware that the learners weren’t actually being shocked, and that Milgram’s actual intentions for this experiment were to determine if the teachers would really go about shocking the

Milgram was shocked by the levels of obedience and set about devising variations of the experiment to find out what components of the situation led to such levels of total obedience. He increased the learner’s proximity first with vocal feedback from the shocks, progressing from grunts to refusals to continued and agonizing screams, then the learner was placed in the same room acting as if being shocked, and then finally the teacher sat next to the learner and had to forcefully hold the learners hand down onto a shock plate while administering shocks. The learner refuses to continue after 150 volts. These variations each completed 40 times show the level of detail Milgram went to with his study. He dissected every aspect of the situation and studied its effect on the outcome. The variations showed that proximity to the learner increased disobedience to the orders to continue hurting the learner. Staggeringly 30% of participants completed the experiment even when they had to hold down the unwilling learners hand.

The Milgram Experiment were a series of done by a professor of psychology at Yale University. The experiment consisted of a teacher and student. The teacher in this study is what the researchers are studying to whether or not the person will administer electro shocks to the learner. The teacher was instructed to shock the learner whenever the learner answered an answer incorrectly. As the learner continuously answers incorrectly the teacher would increase the voltage as well. I think that in this specific case the ends do justify the means. It was a safe experiment and while it may have caused some anxiety with some of the subjects I think it was very beneficial to learn the quite a few people will commit acts as long as they don’t see themselves

In 1963, Stanley Milgram of Yale University conducted a behavioral study on destructive obedience. Researchers hypothesized that obedience to authority figures is an engrained behavior that can override an individual’s ethics, sympathies, and moral conduct. The experiment was designed to investigate what degree of obedience subjects would display when instructed by an authority figure to inflict pain and harmful punishment (via electric shock) on another person. In this study, the subjects were told that experimenters were looking into the effect of punishment on learning. Under false pretense and pretext, subjects were asked by an authority figure (the experimenter) to play the role of “teacher” and were instructed to deliver increasingly powerful shocks to “learners” when the learners failed to answer the teacher’s questions

The most important questions that Stanley Milgram attempted to answer was could he get individuals to electrocute and cause serious harm to other human beings and if so then could events like the Holocaust occur again. He wanted to see if every normal people who were good and caring have the ability to act callous and inhumanely without any regard toward human safety. His goal was to understand obedience and authority and under what conditions would someone obey authority and carry out order and commands that demanded cruel and unusual punishment. The experiment consisted of a number of participants that were instructed to teach an individual deemed a “learner” pairs of words and administer an electric shock if they gave an incorrect response. With each incorrect response, the electric shock was amplified, despite the fact the the participant had

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).

Obedience back in the late 60s and the early 70s widely common. The people of this time respected authority figures whether it be teachers, parents, or preachers. The people of this day were very hesitant to cross the line and not listen to authority figures. In this particular research study it was a test of compliance and obedience. Some participants failed and some passed. The ones that failed were the ones who stood tight to their values and refused to harm another human being and the ones who passed were the ones who expressed worry and concern, but at the end of the day they continued to administer the word teller shocks. We came to find out that no one was actually getting harmed and that the sounds of agony were voice recorded, but the whole experiment was still effective because it was a test of the

Milgram looked in depth on how he could conduct an experiment in which would display the social influences of obedience and how this relates to an authority figure. His experiment consisted of 40 participants in which they had to administer electrics shocks to a victim. The victim was not actually shocked but his standardized responses were to ensure that his actions and responses were as if he were being shocked. A simulated shock generator was used, which the levels of the voltage of electricity was clearly marked, reading from 15 to 450 volts. The participant was ordered to shock the victim every time they gave the wrong answer to a question. The experimenter was there to command the participant to administer the shocks to victims, increasing the voltage every time. Milgram set the boundary that if they continued to the voltage level marked danger serve