Milgram's Study Comparison

“The Perpetual Adolescent” is an observational piece by Joseph Epstein. He suggests that modern adult acts much more childish than the previous generations of middle aged people. A big part of acting like a younger person is dressing like a younger person. According to Epstein, the dressed down adult is the immature adult, which in turn leads to many adults trying to copy the modern and hip youth culture. This in turn created more relaxed environments across all career fields, leaving less “true” adults. He feels that American now want to stay young forever instead of maturing into the adults of their parent's generations. Epstein believes that this mentality is flawed, leaving the people in positions of power striving

The experimenter would show the participant along with a confederate a shock generator with voltages of 15v to 450v (30 switches in 15v increments). Participants were told this was connected to a chair in another room. They then drew lots to decide who would be the “teacher” in charge of shocks and who the “learner” receiving shocks (the outcome was rigged for the participant to be the teacher). The confederate was then strapped into the chair, and the participant was given a sample shock of 45v from the generator (the only real shocks given during the experiment) and the experiment would begin. Word pairs were read out which the teacher would ask questions on through an intercom. Wrong answers received a shock which increased with each incorrect response. If the participant reached 450v they would repeat that level twice before the experiment was concluded. Any questioning or refusal to continue was met with standard answers from the experimenter such as “although the shocks are painful, there is no permanent tissue damage” or “the experiment requires that you continue”.

Within the experiment, Stanley Milgram had volunteers come in to participate in a “teacher-learner” roleplay scenario. Stanley Milgram served as the “experimenter” and directed the orders of shocking the learner if they gave incorrect answers. Stanley Milgram wanted

The “teacher” (who had no clue about the experiment) was given direct orders in which he had to carry out. The “learner “gave mainly wrong answers (on purpose) and for each of these the teacher gave him an electric shock. When the teacher refused to administer a shock the experimenter was to give a series of orders / prods to ensure they continued (Milgram Experiment, Simply Psychology). Some teachers were reluctant and questioned but still went ahead and followed the orders regardless of how uncomfortable they felt, while other teachers had no qualms about the incidents

The last two switches on the board were simply characterized as XXX. Before the experiment begins, the teacher is subjected to a test shock of 45 volts to understand to an extent what the learner will be enduring. The experimenter assures both participants that though the shocks may be extremely painful, they are not dangerous. The teacher is instructed by the experimenter to begin at 15 volts and increase the intensity of the shocks after every incorrect answer. The actor was trained to exhibit various indicators of distress based on the voltage level at which they were being “shocked”. These distress signals included groaning, screaming, refusal to continue, indication of a heart problem, and lastly silence. Milgram was able to watch the experiment out-of-sight from another room. Though he had few expectations in terms of what to expect from the teachers, he wasn’t sure that anyone would administer 450 volts. What Milgram found was that the majority (approximately 65% of the subjects) went as far as to administer the maximum 450 volts. Even after expressing perceptible anxiety and a reluctance to continue, none of the subjects terminated prior to administering the 300-volt shocks. When individuals began to exhibit hesitation, the experimenter was to insist that the teacher continue, as it was of the utmost importance that they reach the end of the experiment. Out of the 40 individuals who took part, 26 of them completed

Milgram’s Obedience Experiment has influenced and inspired many experiments in the decades following the original study done in 1962. Moral psychologists, social psychologists, and sociologists have considered how different characteristics affect how the individual responds to authority: Does a group setting make a difference? Are certain personality traits an indicator of rebellion? Will the type of authority influence the willingness of a participant to obey? These questions have been explored through various studies. However, many experimenters are trying to uncover the circumstances under which a participant will perform immoral

This quote, by Stanley Milgram (1974, p. 205), exemplifies the debate that exists around the topic of obedience. Obedient behaviours have been studied in Milgram’s famous obedience experiments, and evidence of atrocities being carried out as a result of obedience can be seen in situations such as the holocaust in World War Two (Mastroianni, 2000) and more recent events such as (My Lai). This essay will explain both sides of the debate, arguing for situation and individual factors that influence people to behave in particular ways. Therefore, an interactional approach is argued here, that the situation and individual influences cannot be disentangled. A brief explanation of Milgram’s baseline study (1963) will be introduced first, before

1. Stanley Milgram conducted a study on obedience after he had been long intrigued by the way that people conform in social settings like being in large groups or being under direct authority figures. An example of conformity that intrigued him the most was how the Nazi’s in Germany, who years previous were normal people, could engage in one of histories most disturbing genocides. Milgram’s study consisted of forty males who were split up into two groups, teacher and learner (accomplice of the study). The teacher would be in a room with an actor pretending to be a doctor or psychologist, the actor would wear a lab coat to show authority over the teacher.

Throughout the article Behavioral Study of Obedience by Stanley Milgram obedience, the experiment

Obedience is a compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another’s authority (Oxforddictionaries, n.d). Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist, known for his experiment on obedience. This was taken place in the 1960’s while he was completing his professorship at Yale University (wikipedia.org, 2015).

Milgram in 1963 completed a study into obedience to prove that people in Germany were more obedient than Americans. This essay will discuss Milgram’s experiment into obedience and critically analysis this study, along with looking at further research and how Milgram’s experiment impacted the psychological field. To begin with, Milgram advertised his experiment in a local newspaper. Forty men replied to the advert. When the men arrived, they were introduced to Mr. Wallace, who they believed to be another participant in the experiment.

The learner was taken into a room where they would be connected to different types of electric fittings while strapped into a chair. While the teacher would observe what was going on. During the training session the teacher had to give the learner word groups and if the learner got them incorrect the teacher would shock the learner. The objective of the shock was to see if the learner would learn better if they knew that there would be repercussion if they got the word group incorrect. Each time that the learner got a group of words incorrect, the teacher would increase the amount of volts that the learner would get shocked with. Milgram had the teacher to increase the volts until the learner scream stop, however the teacher was instructed to continue until the volts reached an amount that was to the limit it could kill the learner. Before the learner entered the session it was stated that the learner had a heart condition and that the experiment should not exceed the amounts of volts that would be harmful enough to cause damage. As the volts increased the learner expressed he wanted to stop and the teacher was instructed to continue, the teacher continued until maximum volts were applied to the learner an the learner complained about his heart issue at this point the learner fell without movement and that when the teacher was informed that he was

The 1920s was a decade of many inventions after WWI when soldiers had returned home. People were able to enjoy themselves more from making more money and new technologies. This era was also a time where medicine advanced more, due to that less people were getting sick and more people were staying healthy. This decade of change allowed many Americans to own new technologies and different inventions they never had or thought about before.

It will then move onto the parallels of their findings before finishing on the differences of their conclusions. The similarities and differences between these studies merit show how the studies have contributed to the discussion on obedience and they merit thorough investigation. One notable

He had the experimenter come in dressed in a lab coat and explained that they were to ask a series of word associations to the learner and administer shocks for incorrect answers. As the number of incorrect answers increased so did the intensity of the shocks given. Voltage of the shocks ranged from 15/ slight shock to 300/danger to 450/xxx. The shocks were a form of punishment. The naïve subject was unaware that the shocks dispensed were simulated.