Milgrams Study of Obedience to Authority - 1244 Words

Stanley Milgram is a famous psychologist who focused his studies on authority and peoples reaction and obedience to it. His famous experiment and its results were groundbreaking in psychology, surprising both psychologists and regular people alike. First I will discuss the reason for Milgrims study of obedience to authority. Then I will explain the experiment, its formulation, and its results. Finally I will cover the influence of the experiment on psychology and society. Stanley Milgrim was born in New York City in 1933, the son of European immigrants. He earned his bachelors degree in Political Sciences from Queens College, where he never even took a course in psychology. He then applied to Harvard for his Ph.D. but was not†¦show more content†¦The subjects of the experiment believed that they were taking part in a study on the relationship of learning and punishment. The subject would sit in a room and ask questions to an actor in another room, who was supposed to be another subject. In front of the questioner was a box that had a series of buttons labeled from 15 volts to 450 volts. The subject was told to shock the person every time they answered incorrectly, increasing the voltage each time. As the shocks got worse, the actor would make noise, bang on the wall, yell for help, etc. but the researcher would tell the subject to keep going. Milgrim found, contrary to many psychologists predictions, that sixty-five percent of the subjects delivered the shocks all the way up to 450 volts (Slater). These results were very revealing about peoples obedience to authority. As the subjects in the experiment went on delivering the shocks, they showed signs of deep moral conviction, however they didnt stop delivering the shocks. They continued to inflict severe pain on an innocent individual because an authority figure was telling them to. There were specific instances when a subject said he wanted to stop because he was worried about the healt h of the person he was delivering the shocks to but he continued when the researcher told him that he would accept all responsibility. This detail reveals allot about peoples obedience to authority. It showed that when a person hearsShow MoreRelatedMilgram’s Study of Obedience to Authority772 Words   |  3 Pageswill outline Milgram’s experiment of obedience and outline ethical issues relating to it. Before outlining Milgram’s experiment this essay will look at Milgram himself. ‘Stanley Milgram was born in New York in 1933. A graduate of Queens College and Harvard University, he taught social psychology at Yale and Harvard Universities before become a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Centre of the City University Of New York.’ (Zimbardo, 2010) Milgram’s study of obedience was an experimentRead MoreAnalysis Of Stanley Milgram s Perils Of Obedience Essay1709 Words   |  7 PagesStill, many questions still remain prevalent as to how an individual reaches his or her decision on obedience in a distressing environment. Inspired by Nazi trials, Stanley Milgram, an American psychologist, questions the social norm in â€Å"Perils of Obedience† (1964), where he conducted a study to test how far the average American was willing to for under the pressures of an authority figure. Milgram s study showed that under the orders of an authoritative figure, 64% of average Americans had the capabilityRead MoreMilgrams Research on Obedience811 Words   |  4 PagesMilgrams research on obedience: how and why it can help student nurses The report aims to: Describe the main aspects of Milgrams study on Obedience Explain why and how this research can be used to help prepare student nurses for working on hospital wards Contribute to the understanding of some of the challenges nurses may face in their working practices Background Stanley Milgram, a psychologist from Yale University, conducted a series of experiments on obedience to explain some of theRead MoreOutline and Evaluate Milgram’s Concept of â€Å"Agentic Shift†.1242 Words   |  5 PagesOutline and Evaluate Milgram’s concept of â€Å"agentic shift†. Following results of his world famous obedience studies, Milgram developed his own theory of why people obey a malevolent authority – â€Å"agentic shift†. Milgram findings led him to believe a person can be in one of two psychological state at any particular time, and the â€Å"agentic shift† is what causes ordinary people to follow orders because they believed the experimenter has a legitimate authority. Milgram believed people acted withoutRead MoreThe Causes Of Obedience From Research By Milgram ( 1974 ) And His Contemporaries1360 Words   |  6 Pagesand explain what we can learn about the causes of Obedience from research by Milgram (1974) and his Contemporaries. Stanley Milgram was a Psychologist at Yale. Obedience is an essential part in the format of humanity, and it’s destructiveness has been investigated throughout time. Stanley Milgram organized a research to test the destructiveness of obedience however, Milgram wanted to investigate why ordinary people are keen to obey an authority figure and commit evil deeds even when it goes againstRead Moremilgrams study into obedience777 Words   |  4 Pagesfactors that Milgram found effect obedience? Refer to empirical evidence in your answer Milgram’s original study into obedience came under to a lot of scrutiny because of both mythological and ethical problems. This meant that the validity of Milgram’s study was put into question. Following the study were further investigations to see what might change and explain the results that Milgram found, both by Milgram himself and other psychologists. Variations to his study throw up interesting theories toRead MoreThe Milgram Experiment Essay1299 Words   |  6 Pagesshock. The Milgram Experiment Stanley Milgram (1963) Experiment: Focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. 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 participants for his experiment by advertising for male participants to take part in a study of learning at Yale University.   The procedure was that the participant was paired with anotherRead MoreObedience : Behind The Unethical And Valid True Essay1716 Words   |  7 PagesGuadalupe Loza Professor Comstock English -80 28 October, 2014 Obedience: Behind the Unethical and Valid True The action of believing on what is right according to reality and its own self; make obedience part of each individual responsibility, regardless other people behavior. Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist that conducted in the 1960s one of the most famous studies referring on how people obey or disobey to certain authoritarian instructions. The experiment basically consistedRead MoreComparative Analysis Of Stanley Milgrams The Perils Of Obedience1461 Words   |  6 PagesComparative Analysis The purpose of Stanley Milgram writing his â€Å"The Perils of Obedience,† is to show to what extent an individual would contradict his/her moral convictions because of the orders of an authority figure (Milgram 78). He constructed an experiment wherein an experimenter instructs a naà ¯ve subject to inflict a series of shocks of increasing voltage on a protesting actor. Contrary to Milgram’s expectations, about sixty percent of the subjects administered the highest voltage shock. (MilgramRead MoreMilgram s Theory Of Obedience Experiments1133 Words   |  5 PagesIntroduction Stanley Milgram was a Yale psychologist that is famous for conducting the obedience experiments in 1961. Milgram had conducted a series of experiments during the 1960s that were related to obedience. The results of these experiments had demonstrated a disturbing yet powerful view into the power of authority that can exert from it some sort of obedience. Milgram’s experimentation had begun in 1961 after the trail of Adolph Eichmann has started slightly after World War II. Milgram was