Dr. Berger’s experiment attempted to test the morality of people when an authority figure was present. In this experiment, the test subject was told to teach word pairings to a “learner”, each time the learner was wrong, an electric shock would be administered to the learner, each additional wrong answers the shock voltage would be increased. In the actual experiment no shocks were administered, and the real test subject was the teacher to see how many shocks they would administer. In the experiment, 65% of men and 73% of women would administer over the maximum 150 volts. For the reasoning behind why the subjects administered such a high voltage, many participants simply said it was because it was their job, they were told to do it so they
There was so much that happened here that was so, so wrong, all because of power. In this paper, I will be explaining why this experiment could not, and should not, be conducted today. The first major point in the ethical rules of experimentation
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.
This Milgram research on respect to authority figures was a series of cultural science experiments conducted by Yale University scientist Stanley Milgram in 1961. They assessed the willingness of survey participants, men from a different variety of jobs with varying degrees of training, to obey the authority figure who taught them to do acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Participants were led to think that they were helping an unrelated research, in which they had to distribute electrical shocks to the individual. These fake electrical shocks gradually increased to grades that could have been deadly had they been true. McLeod's article about the Milgram experiment exposed the fact that a high percentage of ordinary people will
Jacob, on the other end of the spectrum, gave up a career as a doctor to become “…a gay activist teaching inner –city kids,” (60). Jacob, who kneeled to authority and flipped the switch on the shock machine, lived his real life by sticking up for himself and others against the crowd or norm. It seems obvious that the only logical explanation is that Milgram’s experiment did not accurately display how our personalities affect whether we obey authority or
During Stanley Milgram’s 1960’s study, he made subjects believe that they were harming another subject in order to test obedience. He did this by having the subject ask an actor, who was pretending to be another subject, to remember a word out of a series of words. Whenever the actor fail to get the word correct, the subject would flip a switch that he believe was administering an increasing electric charge. They were told not to stop and to continue increasing the voltage even after the actor began yelling and begging them to stop, and even after he stopped responding all together. The study was to see just how far people are willing to go to follow the orders of an authoritative figure.
Subjects were told to shock a person who they believed to also be a subject if they answered a question wrong. The people getting shocked were actors and were not actually receiving electrical shocks. Many of the subjects continued to give high voltage shocks because they were told to. This experiment was viewed as unethical because of the emotional stress it put on the subjects.
Biography and personal life John Berger is a famous British Painter, Poet, Art critic, and Novelist. He was born on November 5 1926 at London Borough of Hackney. He had a sun sign, which was Scorpio. His father S.J.D Berger and his mother Miriam Branson raised him. Berger's first marriage was childless.
When the voltage gets even higher the learner starts exclaiming about his heart condition and that he does not want to continue. After this occurs the first participant is extremely put off that the learner is complaining about his heart and he refuses to go on. When the teacher is urged on repeatedly, he states that “it is not essential for him” and disassociates himself from the experimenter and experiment. This participant is now going against the Normative Social Influence, which refers to when individuals conform because of their need to be accepted. By disassociating himself and stressing that he did not care about the experiment, the participant rejected the need to be accepted because he did not agree with the experimenter’s
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….
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."