Stanley Milgram, established a new course of study in the psychology of obedience. The purpose of his experiment was to have an idea of to see how people react the autocritical standard; during his experiment, he recorded how people will behave when given a source of power. Milgram gained this idea after the World War II. He believed that some people had the ability to essentially block out human thoughts of morals, ethics, and sympathetics when assigned to a job. The core issue that Milgram faced was finding a way to create a situation to test his theory; because behavior is such a complicated aspect of psychology to test, Milgram had to properly execute the experiment without physical harm from one person to another.
The primary theory that Milgram was conducting was to test human behavior when higher authority is ordering them to to do certain tasks. Milgram believed that people with no mental disability that led normal lives would not purposely inflict pain towards someone without a reason; however, when there is authority allowing such harsh rules to be enforced, people will most likely obey their authority.
To test his theory, Milgram required forty participants in total who had to be twenty to fifty years of age with various backgrounds. All of the participants that came to the study were paid beforehand so that the experiment would not have any flaws by their actions towards getting their money. After receiving the money, it will be theirs to keep with the option
The Milgram Experiment conducted at Yale University in 1963, focused on whether a person would follow instructions from someone showing authority. Students (actors) were asked questions by the teachers (participants), if the students got the answer wrong they would receive a shock each higher than the previous. The shocks ranged from Slight shock (15v) to Danger! (300v) to XXX (450v). Stanley Milgram wanted to know if people would do things just because someone with authority told them to, even if it was hurting someone. I believe that the experiment was a good way to test the obedience of people
Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted an experiment, which later wrote about it in “The Perils of Obedience” in 1963 to research how people obey authoritative figures and what extent a person would go inflicting pain onto an innocent person. The study involved a teacher (subject), learner (actor), and an experimenter (authoritative figure). The teacher was placed in front of a control panel labeled with electrical shocks ranging from 15 to 450 volts and instructed to shock the learner incrementally if they gave a wrong answer when asked questions with word associations. Switches corresponded with the voltage ranging from “Slight Shock” to “Danger: Severe Shock” followed by
Stanley Milgram experiment bought forth the ultimate question in social psychology. How far away is someone go to confirm with society and be obedient to an authority to figure? It has been discovered though such experiments that people will obey orders, even if it inflicts harm on another individual. However, the same individuals were unwilling to inflict harm if it involved personal contact with the individual being harmed or even the sounds of pain and please from the individual being harmed.
Both Baumrind and Parker effectively wrote about how the Milgram experiment was like the holocaust and Nazi torture. Baumrind states that "the laboratory is unfamiliar as a setting and the rules of behavior ambiguous compared to a clinician's office"(90). This shows how people would react differently if they were in a familiar setting other than a lab. She goes on to explain how obedient suggestible manner is stronger in the lab than it would be elsewhere. In the article Milgram Experiment by Saul Mcleod he states that "Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by authority figure, even to the extent of killing innocent human being" (Milgram experiment).
Before Milgram’s findings, the fact that people were inclined to obey to authority figures was already realized. He just confirmed this belief. Milgram followed effective steps by using precise procedures. He made sure that the experiment reflected features of an actual situation in which a person would obey to an authority figure: offering compensation (monetary reward in this experiment), being under pressure (Prods 1 to 4 in this case), and mentioning that the person who obeys can withdraw. These features can also be seen in a situation where a soldier is commanded to fire, for instance. A soldier will get a monetary compensation, is under pressure to obey because he chose to be part of the military, and he knows that he can resign at any time. Milgram created an experiment so precise and detailed that more than enough evidence was demonstrated.
The Milgram experiment was ethical, however there are issues within the experiment that may say that it was unethical. The ends of the experiment were to get results from those who were obedient while shocking the “learner” even under a stressful and complicated circumstances. In that time era, there wasn’t a strict control over the ethics of the experiments that had taken place. Today’s modern critics would never let this type of experiment happen if not all the variables were to be predicted before the commence of the experiment. Milgram wanted an answer if a person or group of people would obey even if they are hurting other humans in the process.
The "Perils of Obedience" by Stanley Milgram details about the classic studies relating to obedience. The main study in focus is the Milgram’s Obedience study, conducted in the 1963 by the Yale University scientist Stanley Milgram. The experiment was designed by Milgram in such a way that participants are forced to obey the instructions of authority figure, even if they are immoral and also when such instructions cause pain/harm to another person. The participants selected for the experiment are ordinary people (Milgram, 630). The participants were willing to administer electric shocks to remaining people when ordered by authority figure. The Milgram experiment does not address the ethical concerns of testing and Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University, upon modifying the Milgram's setup found that situational factors result increased obedience in participants (Milgram, 631). The studies conducted by Burger and Milgram showed under a specific set of circumstances, the
In 1961 The NSF, National Science Foundation, approved his proposal for his experiment. In the same year Milgram met his future wife Alexandra Menkin, who was both a social worker and a dancer. After being approved Milgram started his experiment in May of 1962, which was called the Milgram Experiment or the Milgram Obedience Experiment. The background of this experiment was inspired by the Jewish men, women and children who were victimized during the Holocaust. His overall question was would people do harm to others if they were told by someone of higher power or intellect to do it. The experiment included 40 male participants as the teachers. The experiment was set up in which there would be a teacher, normally the participant, and a learner, which was shown to be somebody but really was someone working with Milgram. Both participants were told that they were doing research to prove recent psychologist theories that a person learns things correctly when they are punished for making a mistake. Both the teacher and the learner are given a list of terms and words to associate with the terms. The teacher
The Milgram experiment was to test the power authority has on the common human being. Milgram performed the experiment with two individuals at a time. Two individuals show up for a study and are taken to a room where one is strapped in a chair to prevent movement and an electrode is placed on his
Stanley Milgram had a reasonable idea when thinking about the idea of how obedient people are to authority. I feel the way he went about the experiment was a little cruel. It was a well thought out experiment, but the one problem with it was that it was messing with the mental state of people's’ minds.
People can commit heinous acts without being heinous people when placed under authority, according to Stanley Milgram’s conclusions from his experiment. In the article “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience” written by Diana Baumrind, a psychologist who worked at the Institute of Human Development, she refutes Milgram’s claims by focusing on the ethical issues and the overall relevancy of the trial. Baumrind commences her article by arguing that Milgram mistreated and distressed his subjects, thus causing psychological harm. Additionally, she attempts to dispel the correspondence between the Milgram experiment and the Holocaust, she and suggests variables that could have altered the results (Baumrind 93-94). Ian Parker, a British
The Milgram experiment is probably one of the most well-known experiments of the psy-sciences. (De Vos, J. (2009). Stanley Milgram was a psychologist from Yale University. He conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. Milgram wanted to investigate whether Germans were particularly obedient to authority figures as this was a common explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II. Milgram selected people for his experiment by newspaper advertising. He looked for male participants to take part in a study of learning at Yale University.
The Milgram’s Experiment was an experiment to see how authority figures effects the way people obey conducted by Social psychology by the name Stanley Milgram this experiment was conducted in 1969. Milgram hired about 500 men between the ages of 20 and 50 from a newspaper ad he had placed. Milgram was looking for men that came from all walks in life. Milgram did not care if they were educated, uneducated, rich or poor he wanted them all. The men that were chosen to participate in the experiment were told that they would be paid 4.50 for one hour of their time if they participated in the experiment.
Stanley Milgram wanted to test subject’s readiness to obey authority without question, no matter what inhumane acts the authority commands. The subjects in the study were gathered by a newspaper advertisement that requested volunteers for an experiment to study the effect of punishment on learning, if chosen they would be compensated $4.50 for their participation. Forty males between the ages of 25 and 50 were selected with varying occupations and education levels. The experiment was conducted in the interaction laboratory at Yale University. The role of the experimenter was played by a 31 year old high school biology teacher who wore a gray technician’s coat and was aware of the true objective of the study. One naïve subject and one victim, an accomplice, performed in each experiment. The cover story, the effect of punishment on learning, was used to justify the administration of electric shock by the naïve subject. The naïve subjects were told that the experiment was going to test the effect different people have on each other as teachers and learners, and what effect punishment will have on learning in the controlled situation. The experimenter had the participants draw slips out of a hat to decide if they were going to be designated as a teacher or as a learner. This drawing was engineered so that a naïve subject was always the teacher and an accomplice was always the learner. Immediately after the drawing, the teacher and
The Milgram experiment was conducted in 1963 by Stanley Milgram in order to focus on the conflict between obedience to authority and to personal conscience. The experiment consisted of 40 males, aged between 20 and 50, and who’s jobs ranged from unskilled to professional. The roles of this experiment included a learner, teacher, and researcher. The participant was deemed the teacher and was in the same room as the researcher. The learner, who was also a paid actor, was put into the next room and strapped into an electric chair. The teacher administered a test to the learner, and for each question that was incorrect, the learner was to receive an electric shock by the teacher, increasing the level of shock each time. The shock generator ranged from