The Power of Situation in The Milgram Experiment Essay examples

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.

To experiment more on the participant’s response, another independent variable that could have influenced responses would have been if the participants, the teachers of the experiment, were able to see the learners. That way it replicates more of a learning environment where learners and teachers are face-to-face. In this case, both sides could still be in separate rooms, but instead there’s a screen showing the teacher the learner. Since the learner is only an actor and no actual harm is being inflicted unto them, and they could act like they are being shocked as well. Additionally, as the teacher is able to see the learner, a more formidable response is created as they can visually see

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

He conducted 18 different variations of the original experiment. When changing different variables the obedience percentage dropped significantly. These variations showed that when the “authority” figure was wearing some sort of uniform the obedience levels would rise but when the participants question their authority they percentage decreased. In other variations the learner and the teacher were placed in the same room so the teacher can experience the pain the learner was going through. In this variation the obedience fell too. Throughout all of the variations the percentage of participants administering the maximum 450 volts decreased significantly when different variables were added to the

With each wrong answer came an electric shock that the teacher, a random male participant, had to physically cause. The teacher could hear the learner after a while begging to stop. At this point the teachers causing the pain are obviously uncomfortable. Some start by laughing nervously and other just immediately beg to stop the experiment. At this point the experimenter gives a series of orders to push the teacher to continue. As a result, two-thirds of participants carried on shocking the learner to the highest level of four hundred and fifty volts. All the participants involved continued up to three hundred

Those subjects either played the role of a student or a teacher. The Teachers were told to administer increasingly severe electric shocks to the learner when questions were answered incorrectly. The shock levels were from 15 to 450 volts. In the Milgram Obedience Study Video, it states that” Many if not most subjects were troubled by it and found it a highly conflicted experience... Some were laughing hysterically after inflicting damage upon them,” meaning that this quote not only presents how the experiment gave too much power to the experimenters but also shows the misuse in power (Milgram, 6:40-7:00).

Each time the question asked was answered incorrectly the voltage of shock would be increased. The “student” had been an actor hired to react to each shock, as the shock was to increase so did their reactions to appeal to the “teacher’s” empathy. When the “teachers” had reached a dangerous high voltage and continued to do so it demonstrated a form of blind authority. Blind authority is obeying the law only because it is a law, convinced your actions are okay because one is obeying orders of an authority greater than man. It is apparent that this is blind authority due to the “teachers” questioning if they should continue the experiment and demonstrating feeling guilt or discomfort in their task given. Although the “teachers” may have felt their task given was wrong they continued to do so because a figure of authority assured them it was okay, they were following the rules

The Milgram experiment was performed by the sociologist Stanley Milgram to discover the power of authority. In this experiment, Stanley was trying to demonstrate the willingness people have to follow orders from an authority figure. Even thought the results of this experiment were very surprising, I think that this kind of experiments would allows us to study and understand better the human’s nature. This experiment showed a side of human’s nature that was unknown by the scientistic community, and this is the reason why we need to perform more experiment like this one.

Results of the study are looked at by the number of participants and students when they stopped or continued to the end of the experiment. Participants in the study gauged on how far they would go in delivering shock the students. The question posed to a group of student from Yale where the study was conducted and participated in the experiment. The result was 3 out of 100 provided answers to giving the maximum voltage allowed by the administrator. 65% of the participants in the study which is shocking to the question proposed before the experiment proceeded with pressing the lever for maximum voltage (Cherry, 2008). The subjects in the study became highly agitated, angry, distraught, and extremely upset with the examiners (teachers); the participant students continued all the way until the end of the study. Unexpectedly the findings produce quite a shock itself because of the high level of participants who would follow orders by continuing the shock someone as they know and understand that the severity of voltage would go from 30 volts and in 15-volt increments, and it continues all the way to 450 volts. The levels were labeled, slight, moderate, and danger “severe shock.” Moreover, the last two labels were simply documented as XXX.

Stanley Milgram, in his essay, “The Perils of Obedience,” argues that ordinary humans can be destructive instruments when they obey authority. For example, the Nazis guards were following orders when they were committing genocidal acts. “Obedience,” written by Ian Parker, leads one to believe that people have different degrees of obedience under different situational factors. Parker partially agrees with Milgram on human obedience and how it can cause problems.

In the experiment, a person is given the task to ask another person, who is in a separate room, a question. If the person gets the question wrong, they are given an electrical shock. A higher voltage shock is given if the questions are answered incorrectly. A scream is heard every time the shock occurs. The person believes they are really shocking the person answering the questions.

Now as the voltage would increase, the fake screams of the learner (the accomplice) would become louder and more agonizing so that the “teacher” would get tricked into thinking he was actually causing the learner physical pain. The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether the “teacher” would continue to administer the shocks each time the voltage increased even though he could hear the learners screams just because the experimenter/ authoritative figure would instruct him to do so. The result of the experiment was that 62.5% of the “teachers” went to the max voltage (450 volts) even though the “learner” was instructed to stay quiet once the voltage got above 300 volts to make it seem as if the “learner” had lost consciousness which proved that the majority of people would in fact, listen to what an authoritative figure tells them to do even though it could be causing another severe pain. What you can take away from this is that in the end, the majority of the “teachers” (participants) were willing to administer a fatal shock and potentially end someone’s life just because an authoritative figure instructed them to which proved Stanley Milgram’s purpose of the experiment. Now this experiment was said to be unethical because of the fact that Milgram deceived the participants and tricked them into believing that they could have actually murdered another human being. The experience of

On arriving for the experiment they were told that they would play he role of the teacher. They were to read a series of words pairs to an individual on the opposite side of a partition. They were to test the individuals' memory by giving him a word and asking him to select the correct matching word from four alternatives. Each time the learner made an error, they were to give him/her an electric shock at the touch of a lever. The individual was strapped into an electric chair while they watched. The teachers had levers in front of them labelled from 15 to 450 volts and switches labelled from slight shock to danger: severe shock to the final ‘XXX'. They were instructed to move one lever higher on the shock generator each time the learner made an error. There were not of course any shocks.

However, this experiment was all fake, the learner was also a person who knew what was going on just like how it was for the Asch Conformity, there were no real shocks they just gave fake screams to make it seem like it was real! The whole point was to test if the teacher would follow the directions and go all the way to 450 volts. Some people actually gave up because they couldn’t live with hurting an innocent person and some people went all the way to 450 volts. I remember watching this experiment in one of my high school classes I am still just as shocked as I was while watching the video.

(Brennan 2016). All the students surveyed believed that only a very small percentage of teachers would be prepared to inflict the maximum voltage. Milgram also informally surveyed his colleagues and found that they, too, believed very few participants would progress beyond a very strong shock. In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65% of the experiment participants gave the maximum 450-volt shock. Milgram however also noticed their behaviour. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment). Many were very uncomfortable administrating the shocks. At some point throughout the experiment, every participant stopped and questioned the experiment; some said they would refund the money they were paid for taking part in the experiment. Throughout the experiment, participants displayed varying degrees of anxious behaviour. Subjects were sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips, groaning, digging their fingernails into their skin, and some were even having nervous laughing fits or seizures. (McLeod,