ipl-logo

Analysis Of Stanley Milgram's The Perils Of Obedience

893 Words4 Pages

Obedience is a form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual, who is usually one with authority. If the order was never said, it is believed that the person would not have acted the way they had. From a young age everyone is taught to obey and listen to your parents, teachers, police officers, and figures on a higher hierarchy of power, or status. Stanley Milgram mentioned in his essay, The Perils of Obedience, that “Obedience is as basic an element in the structure of social life as one can point to. Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living and it is only the person dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond, with defiance or submission, to the commands …show more content…

The learner, or victim, is actually an actor who receives no shock at all. The point of the experiment is to see how far a person will go in a situation where he is ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim. Milgram, during his study, noted when a conflict occurred, ”At 75 volts, he grunts; at 120 volts, he complains loudly; at 150, he demands to be released from the experiment. As the voltage increases, his protests become more vehement and emotional. At 285 volts, his response can be described only as an agonized scream. Soon thereafter, he makes no sound at all.” Although nothing is happening to the actor being “shocked,” the teacher knows they are hurting the learner only because they are answering wrong. The teacher can see that the victim, the learner, is indeed in extreme discomfort. Yet the teacher continues to shock the learner when he is wrong.They are being inhumane, but believe they are doing right because they are just told to do so. Milgram said “For the teacher, the situation quickly becomes one of gripping tension. It is not a game for him: conflict is intense obvious. The manifest suffering of the learner presses him to quit: but each time he hesitates to administer a shock, the experimenter orders him to

Show More
Related

  • Comparing A Few Good Men And The Perils Of Obedience

    1546 Words  | 7 Pages

    In the article, “The Perils of Obedience,” by Stanley Milgram,

    Read More

  • Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee's In The Perils Of Obedience

    1352 Words  | 6 Pages

    The student and teacher were placed in separate rooms and an instructor was placed in the same room as the teacher. He would then attempt to convince the teacher to continue the experiment even if the student starts crying out or wanting to leave. The teacher was required to “shock” the student if they said an incorrect answer. However, the ‘shocks’ became more intense and came with each incorrect answer. They eventually started getting very dangerous and potentially life threatening.

    Read More

  • Obedience In Stanley Milgram's 'The Perils'

    1262 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the experiment, Milgram uses purposeful deception as the teacher is the naive subject and is told they are participating in a memory and learner psychology experiment and are in charge of delivering shocks to the learner, who, in fact, is an actor. The majority of the participants in the study were obedient to the experimenter even though the experimenter "did not threaten the subjects with punishments such as loss of income, community ostracism or jail for failure to obey. Neither could he offer incentives" (Milgram 651). Despite having nothing to gain, the subjects continued participating in the experiment. The participants continued to administer shocks to the student because they were instructed to

    Read More

  • How Old Was The Milgram Test Done Originally In The 1960's

    578 Words  | 3 Pages

    Would people actually issue a shock that could be potentially fatal to the person they are issuing the test to? The biggest part of this was the influence of the “professor” that was in the room with the “teachers”. Whenever a particularly large shock was issued to the “learner” he would cry out in pain. This caused several people to question whether

    Read More

  • Police Brutality In A Few Good Men

    1123 Words  | 5 Pages

    What takes away this pressure? As each experimentee is told to inflict pain upon another human being they consider what makes it okay to do so. For instance, as a child if someone tells you to perform an act and you get in trouble for what you were told to do, a child would say, “They told me to do it.” Here it is the same instance. The experimentees are able to put full responsibility onto the shoulders of the experimental scientists because they were told to commit the action.

    Read More

  • The Milgram Experiments

    992 Words  | 4 Pages

    He saw that the more personal, or close, the real participant had to be to the fake one, while they were being shocked, affected the obedience as well. He also noticed that if there were two other fake participants teaching that refused to shock their learners that the real participant would not comply. Finally, he tested the experimenter telling the real patient to shock the learner by telephone, instead of actually being there in person, reduced obedience as well (McLead). The Milgram experiment and the Nuremburg trials can relate extensively to explain how the Holocaust happened the way it did.

    Read More

  • Stanley Milgram's Theory Of Conformity

    1244 Words  | 5 Pages

    Participants controlled a shock switch with thirty currents of increasing voltage. The learner was expected to learn a list of words and if he/she failed, the participant was to impose an increasing amount of voltage per mistake. Although a few “learners” expressed negative reactions to the experiment, over 70% of the learners carried on to the highest level of shock

    Read More

  • Stanley Milgram's Experiment

    211 Words  | 1 Pages

    Stanley Milgram’s All I can say to these experiments is “Wow” to me I saw it as inhumane. The interviews confirmed that an everyday normal person can cause pain and suffering to another. Milgram also noticed that the inclination toward a particular characteristic or type of behavior of the teacher was to devalue or demean the learner, to help to internally justify the teacher’s behavior of continuing to conduct the shocks in which it helped to continue the process of the experiment. The experiment gave an enormous amount of insight into the human behavior and the human obedience.

    Read More

  • Obedience Depicted In The Milgram's Film

    603 Words  | 3 Pages

    The guards were treating them like they were animals, it was sickening. One of the male students that was experiencing, said that it was either this or another job that he refuses to do. Obedience is complying with someone’s wish or demand of having their own power to not listen to authority. Often in life were faced with a decision whether to obey or disobey. Some people disobey authority because they feel like they’re in a situation to where you’re not in charge of them or just because you do what someone says your this or that.

    Read More

  • The Milgram Experiment Essay

    981 Words  | 4 Pages

    For every pair that is incorrectly matched the voltage will go up, going all the way up to 450-volt shock. Also each time that the teacher is going to administer a shock they have to iterate the voltage amount. When the experiment begins nothing eventful occurs because the voltage levels are low. As the voltage starts going up we start to hear the learner making noises (uhg), initially the participant does not react. After it happens again we see the participant ask a question regarding the noise, but continues when instructed.

    Read More

  • The Stanford Prison Experiment Vs A Few Good Men

    983 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the article of “The Perils of Obedience”, written by Stanley Milgram, the experimenter explains that the experiment is to see how far a person could hurt a victim in a situation where he is ordered to do so. Also, in the article “The Stanford Prison

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Perils Of Obedience By Stanley Milgram

    1205 Words  | 5 Pages

    Switches were clearly labelled with voltage 15-450 volts. The teacher was actually naïve subject but Learner was an actor who didn’t even get a single shock. The purpose of this experiment was to see how far Teacher can go in the critical situation when shocks volts rise and Learner’s pain increased. Screaming and pain of the Learner made Teacher hesitating in proceeding far. To get freedom from this situation, Teacher must disobey to the

    Read More

  • How To Identify Milgram's Problems Associated With Obedience

    299 Words  | 2 Pages

    Milgram identifies that obedience has problems in the area of accountability for oneself and that people can be accomplices to a malicious act and still go along with it or be obedient because that individual did not directly commit that brutal act. He brings about questions of why certain harmful, cruel, and unethical situations that a person might face and determine it is wrong may conform if an authority figure told them it was okay and they were not accountable in that situation. Milgram describes the fragmentation of an individual human act as having no consequences or responsibility for evil acts that they have committed. There were problems associated with obedience when there was no physical presence when equivalent authorities had

    Read More

  • Chapter Summary Of The Book 'Opening Skinner's Box'

    708 Words  | 3 Pages

    Joshua, a man involved in the experiment, ““I shocked. I feel bad about that. I shocked but I only went to 150, I broke it off at 150.” He keeps repeating this, as though to reassure himself….

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Milgram's Experiment

    810 Words  | 4 Pages

    The "teachers" continued, at the 180 volts mark the "learner" cried out that he cannot take it any longer. Once reaching 300 volts, the fifty-year-old "learner" yelled about his heart condition and begged to be released. At these points, a decent amount of "teachers" halted the experiment while a large percent continued until the final 450 volt question even though the "learner" had stopped responding. At the 150 volt mark those who were going to stop, did so. If I were in this position I would stop at the first sign of discomfort from the "learner."

    Read More

More about Analysis Of Stanley Milgram's The Perils Of Obedience

Open Document