Milgram Case Study Essay

1183 Words3 Pages

Social science deals with a case study that gives the evidence regarding the beliefs of the researcher. The Milgram study is well-known in psychology. Milgram first began one study in 1961 after the Holocaust time period because he wanted to figure out if individuals were capable of harming others to being obedient to authority. The paper will summarize the study itself and how it was conducted. The writer will give explanation of the results, if the findings were unexpected, what transpired the meaning of the results, and Milgram’s conclusion of the study. There will be an explanation regarding the concept of how situationism applies to Milgram’s case study. Furthermore, this paper will discuss if there is a belief that the results of …show more content…

Every participant went through three hundred volts before they stopped and refused to go any further (McLeod, 2007). This study demonstrates that obedience is a part of who we are. Milgram concludes that there are two states of behavior. The first is autonomous behavior where the individual takes responsibility and the other is agentic state responsibility is on the person giving the orders (McLeod, 2007). People who are ordinary are capable of harming other individuals if a person of authority tells them to. For a person to be obedient they must believe the person giving the orders is qualified and will take responsibility. A person is less likely to harm another person if the authoritative person is not going to take responsibility. This was proven in Milgram’s study because when he told individuals they had to take responsibility they did not want to continue. The Milgram study has influenced other psychologist to explore what makes a person follow orders (Cherry, 2012). The other experiments that Milgram conducted showed that rebellious people are not as obedient. There were different environments demonstrated among the different studies that Milgram used and even though the environment changed the situation stayed the …show more content…

It is said that because he chose his participants the findings are not accurate. However, researches have argued that Milgram’s study has been replicated in other cultures and the majority has come to the same conclusion (McLeod, 2007). Therefore, it is not believed the findings would be any different regardless of an ethnic or cultural group because other cultures have conducted the test and have the same conclusion. Furthermore, in some situations women may react differently than men. The gender of a person of the specific study was that of men, in which it would be difficult to determine if these findings are accurate for all of

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