Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Social psychology assignment
Social psychology assignment
Social psychological theory
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Social psychology assignment
In 1963 Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist developed an experiment that raised awareness on how human beings are capable to act cruel towards others when following commands from someone with high authority. Obedience to authority can cause people to behave different form their own personal beliefs, causing someone to do evil things. For instance, Adolf Eichmann organized the holocaust in Germany that lead to death of six millions people. He ordered his soldiers to collect and exterminate victims that were killed during the Nazi Germany government (McLeod, 2007). After WWII, people became aware of the evil acts committed by the Nazis under Hitler’s authority, while Nazis reported to harming and killing people because they were following
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 Lauren Slater’s book Opening Skinner’s Box, the second chapter “Obscura” discusses Stanley Milgram, one of the most influential social psychologists. Milgram created an experiment which would show just how far one would go when obeying instructions from an authoritative figure, even if it meant harming another person while doing so. The purpose of this experiment was to find justifications for what the Nazi’s did during the Holocaust. However, the experiment showed much more than the sociological reasoning behind the acts of genocide. It showed just how much we humans are capable of.
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
In the experiment “ Talking to plants “ from Mythbusters, potential problems include the use of greenhouses with no sound insulation, a non-homogeneous location and the use of only one specie to infer on a population. In another scientific study, researchers chose to use “ a noiseless growth chamber to prevent any effects from extraneous noise “ and the use “ growth chambers under continuous light at 28 c and 65-75% relative humidity “ in order to maintain a homogeneous location for all plants during the experiment (Jeong et al., 2008) . This helped further explain the findings because with the use of noiseless chambers you can assure that the only noise that the plant was receiving was the one given in the treatment and a valid conclusion
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
According to Wes Bertrand, author of "Abstract", states that "the degree of self- responsibility practiced by a person drastically affects his or her level of obedience to unjust commands" (Bertrand). Milgram related his experiment with Hitler 's Germany by relating that "the man in the camp who actually dropped Cyclon-b into gas chambers was able to justify his behavior on the ground that he was only following orders from above" (Milgram 89). Baumrind supports his statement coming from one point of view; she argues that because Hitler made the Jews sound subhuman and not worth the extra effort, a subordinate officer slaughtering the Jews has no need to feel guilt because he was acting right within his frame of reference" (Baumrind 93). In agreement with Baumrind claiming the Jews were made subhuman, the article "German Jews during the Holocaust, 1939–1945" explains how they took their belongings claiming to use them to produce weapons for the war, the level of obedience and officers acting as they were ordered to by their superiors was necessary or tragedy might strike them as well.If what Diana Baumrind says is true, she is supporting Milgram by saying that the officer was acting right because he was told so, rather than disputing him; like the experiment when the experiment when the experimenter asked the teacher to continue with the
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 real world examples to make his article as effective as possible. Stanley Milgram selected 40 college participants, aged 20-50, to take part in the experiment at Yale University. Milgram says, “The point of the experiment is to see how far a person will proceed in a concrete and measureable situation in which he is ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim” (632). Although the 40 men or women thought that they were in a drawing to see who would be the “teacher” and the “learner,” the drawing was fixed.
During the twentieth century, Harry Harlow performed one of the most controversial experiments that led to a scientific breakthrough concerning the parent-child relationship. It paved the way for understanding terms such as secure, insecure, ambivalent, and disorganized relationships (Bernstein, 2014, 364). During the course of this study, Harlow separated baby monkeys from their birth mothers and isolated them in frightening environments. According to the video “H.H. Overview”, this proved the monkey’s preference for a comforting mother versus a nutritional one. However, this raises the question: can his experiments be deemed ethical, or did his scientific inquiry overstep boundaries?
A man is running late to work one day when he passes by a homeless person asking for help. This man and many others usually consider this particular man to be generous, but since he is late, he ignores the homeless person and continues on his way. One can assume that if he had the time, he would have helped. Does that matter, though, seeing as in that situation, he did not in fact help? Scenarios like this supports Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett’s idea that it is the situation that influences a person’s behavior, not he or she’s individual conscience. Although a person’s individual conscience could play a part in how one behaves in a given scenario, ultimately, the “situational variable” has more impact on the actions of the person than he or she’s morals.
Milgram’s experiment started shortly after the trial of Adolf Eichmann began. Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi who tortured many Jews during the Holocaust, and had others under his hand do whatever he told them to do. Milgram decided to plan a study to merely see if the followers of E...
We live in a society where each individual has their own set of thoughts and beliefs. Occasionally one will modify their beliefs and behavior to coincide with a group. This is an example of social influence. Social influence has three main components; conformity, compliance and obedience. The concept of compliance is similar to conformity, however there is a slight difference. Compliance only requires a person to perform a task. The person does not have to agree or disagree with the assignment, just simply complete it. Conformity requires the person being influenced to change their attitudes and or beliefs. An example of this aspect of social psychology is the holocaust in World War II. Adolph Eichmann was a Nazi officer responsible for filling up death camps in Germany. After the war he went on trial in Jerusalem for crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. On May 31, 1962, he was sentenced to death for the horrible crimes he committed. His defense was "Why me? Why not the local policemen, thousands of them? They would have been shot if they had refused to round up the Jews for the death camps. Why not hang them for not wanting to be shot? Why me? Everybody killed the Jews". A few months after the start of Eichmann’s trial, Stanley Milgram instituted an experiment testing ones obedience to authority. He wanted to find out if good people could do atrocious things if they were just obeying authority. Was Eichmann and millions of others in Nazi Germany decent people who were just following orders? Some other famous experiments that have taken place to test the waters of social psychology are Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment and Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments, all ...
Stanley Milgram is well known for his work with obedience to authority. His work, “The Perils of Obedience,” studied whether average individuals would obey an authority figure, telling them to do something that harms another individual.
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.
Behavioral theories are very significant, but the social learning theory by Albert Bandura is one of the most valuable and influential theory out of them all. The social learning theory analyzes how humans learn through observing other people’s attitudes and behaviors. Adolf Hitler was the dictator of Germany and he was the founder and conductor of the Nazi Party. Accordingly, Adolf Hitler is related to the social learning theory because his actions were related with his life struggle. Many people wonder why Hitler killed so many innocent lives and the reality is that no one will ever know, but the social learning theory by Albert Bandura can help people briefly understand why humans perform cruel and inhumane behaviors. This theory does not excuse nor does it permits Hitler’s malicious behavior, but it provides a psychological view to his unnatural actions. Adolf Hitler was the main cause of World War II and the Holocaust; he was responsible for about 11 million deaths and approximately 1 million were children. During the Holocaust the Nazis focused on executing the Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and disabled people. Moreover, Hitler also conducted the concentration camps, labor camps and extermination camps. In the camps Hitler kept as prisoners anyone who acted against him in any way and he also kept Jews. The concentration camp mainly forced people to do hard labor and slowly they would die of starvation, infections or murder; in the other hand, extermination camps were used to kill an immense cluster of people instantly. Also, Hitler permitted doctors that were part of the Nazi Party to performed medical experiments to the prisoners without their consent, basically the prisoners were used as lab rats and then they ...
...g factors such as fear of consequences for not obeying, human nature’s willingness to conform, perceived stature of authority and geographical locations. I also believe that due to most individual’s upbringings they will trust and obey anyone in an authoritative position even at the expense of their own moral judgment. I strongly believe that Stanley Milgram’s experiments were a turning point for the field of social psychology and they remind us that “ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process”. Despite these findings it is important to point out it is human nature to be empathetic, kind and good to our fellow human beings. The shock experiments reveal not blind obedience but rather contradictory ethical inclinations that lie deep inside human beings.