Would you harm another person against your better judgment just because someone of authority told you to? Stanley Milgam’s experiment of obedience was unique in that he wanted to find out if there was a link between obedience to authority and Nazi Germany by conducting an experiment that required one to shock someone else because they were told. The experiment, though slightly extreme, was effective despite what some might think in determining how someone reacts when given orders by an authority in a stressful situation. It is argued that his methods were unethical, that he should not have deceived the subjects, that he inflicted harm upon the subjects and did not do enough of a follow up, that his overall design was flawed, and that his reasons for the experiment did not apply to actual real-world situations; however, this is simply not the case because Milgram’s study was both effective and ethical for what he was trying to accomplish. In order for this experiment to be successful, the participants had to be deceived. If Milgram would have explained the experiment to them before, the results would have been very different. Chances are that the subject wouldn’t have taken the authorities as seriously if they had known. When the authority would say things such as, “It is absolutely essential that we continue,” (Milgram, Perils, 63) “You have no other choice” (Milgram, Perils, 64) the subject might not find them intimidating because they knew their obedience is what was being tested. Some may think that they need to prove that they have free will and can resist because they are the subject of the experiment, but if they did not know what the focus was, they may have not had that ability. If someone knew the purpose of the experime... ... middle of paper ... ... on whether or not harm was inflicted, if he gave enough care, the location of the experiment, the deception, and the challenge that his study did not apply to real world problems. Even though his study was challenged by Baumrind he still stood his ground and in a very direct and polite way when addressing all the points she criticized. Without this study we might have went on believing that some people we consider “bad” or “psychotic killers” could actually be the direct result of obedience. Work Cited Baumrind, Diana. “Some Thoughts on Ethics of Research: After Reading Milgrams ‘Behavioral Study of Obedience’.” American Psychologist (1964): 421-23. Print. Milgram, Stanley. “Issues in the Study of Obedience: A Reply to Baumrind.” American Psychologist 19 (1964): 848-52. Print. Milgram, Stanley. “The Perils of Obedience.” Harper’s Magazine (1973): 62-77. Print.
In the Article by Philip Meyer’s “If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably” discusses the Milgram experiment, and the readiness to obey authority without question.
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.
It is human nature to respect and obey elders or authoritative figures, even when it may result in harm to oneself or others. Stanley Milgram, an American social psychologist, conducted an experiment to test the reasoning behind a person’s obedience. He uses this experiment in hope to gain a better understanding behind the reason Hitler was so successful in manipulating the Germans along with why their obedience continued on such extreme levels. Milgram conducts a strategy similar to Hitler’s in attempt to test ones obedience. Diana Baumrind, a clinical and developmental psychologist, disagreed with Milgram’s experiment in her article, ”Some Thoughts on Ethics of Research: After Reading Milgram’s “Behavioral Study of obedience”, Baumrind explains
At first Milgram believed that the idea of obedience under Hitler during the Third Reich was appalling. He was not satisfied believing that all humans were like this. Instead, he sought to prove that the obedience was in the German gene pool, not the human one. To test this, Milgram staged an artificial laboratory "dungeon" in which ordinary citizens, whom he hired at $4.50 for the experiment, would come down and be required to deliver an electric shock of increasing intensity to another individual for failing to answer a preset list of questions. Meyer describes the object of the experiment "is to find the shock level at which you disobey the experimenter and refuse to pull the switch" (Meyer 241). Here, the author is paving the way into your mind by introducing the idea of reluctance and doubt within the reader. By this point in the essay, one is probably thinking to themselves, "Not me. I wouldn't pull the switch even once." In actuality, the results of the experiment contradict this forerunning belief.
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.
The Asch and Milgram’s experiment were not 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 detail of the experiment and inflicting unwarranted stress Asch and Milgram’s were
Stanley Milgram, author of "The Perils of Obedience," conducted an experiment at Yale University to see if average citizens would partake in a study revolving around obedience to authority (Milgram 78). In said experiment, a professor from Yale would give an ordinary individual the authority to shock another person. If the ordinary individual asked to stop, the professor would coax them to continue and remind them they hold no responsibility (78). Not only did Milgram 's study revolve around obedience to authority, it also stressed the point of every person could be capable of torture and doing so without feeling responsible. In the article, "The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism," author Marianne Szegedy-Maszak states, anyone can
Upon analyzing his experiment, Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, concludes that people will drive to great lengths to obey orders given by a higher authority. The experiment, which included ordinary people delivering “shocks” to an unknown subject, has raised many questions in the psychological world. Diana Baumrind, a psychologist at the University of California and one of Milgram’s colleagues, attacks Milgram’s ethics after he completes his experiment in her review. She deems Milgram as being unethical towards the subjects he uses for testing and claims that his experiment is irrelevant to obedience. In contrast, Ian Parker, a writer for New Yorker and Human Sciences, asserts Milgram’s experiments hold validity in the psychological world. While Baumrind focuses on Milgram’s ethics, Parker concentrates more on the reactions, both immediate and long-term, to his experiments.
If a person of authority ordered you 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. He observes that most people go against their natural instinct to never harm innocent humans and obey the extreme and dangerous instructions of authority figures. Milgram is well aware of his audience and organization throughout his article, uses quotes directly from his experiment and connects his research with a real world example to make his article as effective as possible.
The Milgram experiment of the 1960s was designed to ascertain why so many Germans decided to support the Nazi cause. It sought to determine if people would be willing to contradict their conscience if they were commanded to do so by someone in authority. This was done with a psychologist commanding a teacher to administer an electric shock to a student each time a question was answered incorrectly. The results of the Milgram experiment help to explain why so many men in Nazi Germany were recruited to support the Nazi cause and serve as a warning against the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques by the United States government.
The first thing I found to be extremely fascinating was the Milgram Study. This study in particular explains in dept how an average person will obey to an authority figure even though the orders could be terrible. I think it’s a fascinating study because typically individuals will not complete an order if it makes them feel uncomfortable. However, once you place someone with higher power they forget about the discomfort and instantly obey to the orders given to them. This topic is important in psychology because it shows the relationship of obedience. It goes to show the factors that have to be put in place for a person to obey to someone else’s orders. This helps psychologist understand how a person with higher power can ultimately control the decisions of a person with lower power.
In finding that people are not naturally aggressive. Milgram now alters the experiment to find out why do people act the way they do. He compiled the experiment to answer, why do people obey authority, even when the actions are against their own morals.
She reasons that, therefore, a laboratory is not an appropriate place to conduct an experiment of this theme. Though Baumrind’s assertion holds some truth, whether the subject obeyed or not was not the focus of Milgram’s experiment. He wanted to see to what extent the subjects obeyed. Just because the subjects were in a setting where obedience is appropriate does not mean the extent to which they were obedient is irrelevant to human nature. For example, if a teacher tells a student to harm a classmate, the level of obedience that student displays is still pertinent to society as a whole. Just because the student is in a setting where obedience is more appropriate does not mean that the degree to which that student is obedient is unimportant. In fact, it is completely relevant because Milgram’s experiment demonstrated that too much obedience can be detrimental for humans as a species. For example, despite murdering millions of people, Adolf Eichmann was mentally unscathed because, in his mind, he was just being obedient. This shows that humans as a species are more than capable of committing deplorable acts under the umbrella of obeying authority. Even though Milgram’s methods were immoral, society now realizes that too much obedience is not beneficial, but actually
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.