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Human behaviorist’s have long studied changes in people’s behavior as it relates to obedience in authoritative relationships. Two of the most renowned obedience studies were conducted by Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo, in which they each tested reactions to authority using important variables that were manipulated throughout their experiments. However, some psychologists, like Dina Baumrind, a psychologist for the Institute of Human Development, believe experiments that test humans impetuous reactions should not be conducted unless the subject is well-informed of the purpose. Baumrinds, “Review of Stanley Milgrams Experiments on Obedience” criticizes the accuracy of Milgrams study and further explores the emotional response those submitted to testing inadvertently experience. While other psychologists, like Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University, believe even experimentation with known factors can produce the same psychological effect, as seen in Milgrams experiment. As Zimbardo notes in “The Stanford Prison Experiment”, even the voluntary role-playing of his study on obedience had a large impact on the subject’s mental-health, proving that Baumrind remains bias with her argument. While both Baumrind and Zimbardo care for the well-being of the subject during and after the experiment, Baumrind argues that all research, like Milgrams, must be conducted with consent of the subject, whereas Zimbardo views all types of experiments are crucial for developing human insight toward obedience to authority. In her article, Baumrind opens focusing her argument around the environment in which Milgrams experiment takes place, while Zimbardo creates the atmosphere for his experiment as part of his research. Baumrind argues that Milgrams l... ... middle of paper ... ...nt appears less traumatic than Milgrams. The guards and prisoners both agree to have learned something from their experience and even have learned about themselves. They consider, “we might react more morally in future real-life analogues of this situation” (252). Zimbardo leaves his subjects with new knowledge and determination to keep themselves from imprisonment in their normal life. Both the critical review Baumrind gives on Milgrams experiment and Zimbardos overview of his prison experiment illustrate the effects authority has on humans and the outcomes the experiments had on testing the subjects psyche. The psychological aspects of both experiments play a significant role in the results both researchers found. In fact, Baumrind and Zimbardo demonstrate that, when conscious of their actions, people are subject to change depending on outside forces.
In "The Perils of Obedience," Stanley Milgram conducted a study that tests the conflict between obedience to authority and one's own conscience. Through the experiments, Milgram discovered that the majority of people would go against their own decisions of right and wrong to appease the requests of an authority figure. The study was set up as a "blind experiment" to capture if and when a person will stop inflicting pain on another as they are explicitly commanded to continue. The participants of this experiment included two willing individuals: a teacher and a learner. The teacher is the real subject and the learner is merely an actor.
Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience are the focus of Theodore Dalrymple and Ian Parker. Theodore Dalrymple is a British physician that composed his views of the Milgram experiment with “Just Do What the Pilot Tells You” in the New Statesman in July 1999 (254). He distinguishes between blind obedience and blind disobedience stating that an extreme of either is not good, and that a healthy balance between the two is needed. On the other hand, Ian Parker is a British writer who wrote “Obedience” for an issue of Granta in the fall of 2000. He discusses the location of the experiment as a major factor and how the experiment progresses to prevent more outcomes. Dalrymple uses real-life events to convey his argument while Parker exemplifies logic from professors to state his point.
He believes the scientific advancements from Milgram’s experiment outweigh the temporary emotional harm to the volunteers of Milgram’s experiment. Also Herrnstein points out that Milgram’s experiment was created to show how easily humans are deceived and manipulated even when they do not realize the pain they are causing. We live in a society and culture where disobedience is more popular than obedience; however, he believed the experiment was very important and more experiments should be done like it, to gain more useful information. The experiment simply would not have been successful if they subjects knew what was actually going to happen, Herrnstein claims. He believes the subject had to be manipulated for the experiment to be successful. “A small temporary loss of a few peoples privacy seems a bearable price for a large reduction in
Obedience is when you do something you have been asked or ordered to do by someone in authority. As little kids we are taught to follow the rules of authority, weather it is a positive or negative effect. Stanley Milgram, the author of “The perils of Obedience” writes his experiment about how people follow the direction of an authority figure, and how it could be a threat. On the other hand Diana Baumrind article “Review of Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience,” is about how Milgram’s experiment was inhumane and how it is not valid. While both authors address how people obey an authority figure, Milgram focuses more on how his experiment was successful while Baumrind seems more concerned more with how Milgram’s experiment was flawed and
In this article “The Pearls of Obedience”, Stanley Milgram asserts that obedience to authority is a common response for many people in today’s society, often diminishing an individuals beliefs or ideals. Stanley Milgram designs an experiment to understand how strong a person’s tendency to obey authority is, even though it is amoral or destructive. Stanley Milgram bases his experiment on three people: a learner, teacher, and experimenter. The experimenter is simply an overseer of the experiment, and is concerned with the outcome of punishing the learner. The teacher, who is the subject of the experiment, is made to believe the electrical shocks are real; he is responsible for obeying the experimenter and punishing the learner for incorrect answers by electrocuting him from an electric shock panel that increases from 15 to 450 volts.
Asch and Milgram’s experiment was unethical in their methods of not informing the participant of the details surrounding the experiment and the unwarranted stress; their experiment portrayed the circumstances of real life situation surrounding the issues of obedience to authority and social influence. In life, we are not given the courtesy of knowledge when we are being manipulated or influenced to act or think a certain way, let us be honest here because if we did know people were watching and judging us most of us would do exactly as society sees moral, while that may sound good in ensuring that we always do the right thing that would not be true to the ways of our reality. Therefore, by not telling the participants the details of the experiment and inflicting unwarranted stress, Asch and Milgram’s replicated the reality of life. In “Options and Social Pressure” Solomon E. Asch conducts an experiment to show the power of social influence, by using the lengths of sticks that the participants had to match up with the best fit, Asch then developed different scenarios to see how great the power of influence is, but what he discovered is that people always conformed to the majority regardless of how big or small the error was the individual always gave in to the power of the majority.
In her excerpt, Baumrind discusses the potential dangers of the aftereffects on the participants of the experiment. On many occasions she suggests that these people are subjects of a cruel and unethical experiment, and suffer from harm to their self-image and emotional disruption (227). She also calls Milgram’s experiment a “game” (Baumrind 225); this illustrates her negative outtake on the experiment which is seen throughout the article. On the contrary, Parker discusses the aftereffects on Milgram himself. He expresses how the experiment, although it shows light to what extent of obedience a person may travel, ruined Milgram’s reputation. Parker also cites many notable authors and psychologists and their reactions to Milgram’s experiment. Despite their differences, Baumrind and Parker are able to find common ground on a few issues concerning the Milgr...
If a person of authority ordered you to inflict a 15 to 400 volt electrical shock on another innocent human being, would you follow your direct orders? That is the question that Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, tested in the 1960’s. Most people would answer “no,” to imposing pain on innocent human beings, but Milgram wanted to go further with his study. Writing and Reading across the Curriculum holds a shortened edition of Stanley Milgram’s “The Perils of Obedience,” where he displays an eye-opening experiment that tests the true obedience of people under authority figures.
With the different style and voice of tone, Parker explained the effects of the experiment from almost everyone’s involved in the experiment point of view. He also showed how the experiment affected Milgram not the just the subjects like Baumrind. However, Both of the writers had a same point, which is that people do what they think in it right this is why they are obedient and that makes Milgram’s experiment not quite accurate because the teacher was constantly worried about the
... no idea that the experiment was about their reactions. In Zimbardo’s the subjects knew of the simulation that would be taking place. In the end both cases proved that as Samucha explains Milgram and Zimbardo’s work demonstrates that, sometimes, the power of situations can be overpowering.
The Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted in 1971 by psychologist Philip Zimbardo explored the moral impact of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. Zimbardo, a former classmate of Stanley Milgram who conducted his own obedience experiment (The Milgram Obedience Study), looked to expand upon Milgram's research. He sought to further investigate the impact of situational variables on human behavior. The main question the researchers asked was, how the participants would react when placed in a simulated prison environment. The participants that were chosen were undergraduate students who were physically healthy with no history of mental illness or a criminal record. They would be selected to fill either the role of prisoner or prison guard. The main question was “Would those good people,
Subjects became so entranced in these roles that the guards started to behave as if they really were the guards of a true prison. Zimbardo had told them to think of themselves in this way and it led to the guards mentally abusing the prisoners with their cruel and degrading routines. In Romesh Ra...
Power and control are two factors in peoples lives that can change how they treat others and what actions they will take to keep the control. The experiment is a prison experiment designed to test how far humans would treat others based on how much control and power they are given. The experiment will take two weeks to determine how individual’s behavior changes with power. Power changes peoples behavior a great amount and many times it is negative. In the experiment, guards are given the power to control prisoners and they take advantage of their power by using force, cruelty and receiving pleasure.
In 1963, Stanley Milgram a renowned social psychologist, published his study in obedience to authority which, although important in terms of understanding human behaviour, raised many ethical issues. This study was replicated in 2006 by Mel Slater et al. but as a consequence of the ethical outrage surrounding Milgram’s obedience study, it was not possible to completely replicate it. Through examination of the similarities and differences of both studies, this paper will demonstrate that the Slater et al. study was, in fact, an excellent replication of Milgram’s and has paved the way to more research on obedience previously unavailable to psychologists due to strict ethical constraints. (Banyard, 2012)
Individuals often yield to conformity when they are forced to discard their individual freedom in order to benefit the larger group. Despite the fact that it is important to obey the authority, obeying the authority can sometimes be hazardous especially when morals and autonomous thought are suppressed to an extent that the other person is harmed. Obedience usually involves doing what a rule or a person tells you to but negative consequences can result from displaying obedience to authority for example; the people who obeyed the orders of Adolph Hitler ended up killing innocent people during the Holocaust. In the same way, Stanley Milgram noted in his article ‘Perils of Obedience’ of how individuals obeyed authority and neglected their conscience reflecting how this can be destructive in experiences of real life. On the contrary, Diana Baumrind pointed out in her article ‘Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience’ that the experiments were not valid hence useless.