In Milgram’s obedience study, Milgram wanted to see what could cause average people to carry out inhumane acts. Most people have a conscience, or some kind of moral compass to guide them in what is right and wrong. Most people would not harm or kill an innocent person. However in some cases, like the Nazi’s, there were once normal citizens carrying out horrible acts against other people. Due to this Milgram wanted to see if ordered by an authority figure a normal citizen would carry out an act that is normally against their moral agenda. This study would help show that people are naturally obedient, even in extreme circumstances. Everyone likes to think that in that situation they would stand up against it and say ‘no, that’s wrong’.
Dawson follows through with the order and even orders Downey to assist him. In the article, “The Perils of Obedience,” author Stanley Milgram believes that obedience is “deeply ingrained" in every being. This implies that when someone of authority demands something be done, it will be done. The same idea is presented in the article, “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience,” by Herbert C. Kelam and V. Lee Hamilton. This article provides evidence that soldiers are more than willing to perform any act, no matter if the order is unethical or unclear.
Americans are not naturally less likely to obey something that they no is wrong. The amount of obedience was highly underestimated. The subjects endured both emotional strain and tension, which was unexpected. 6. What do the results of this study mean in practical terms?
The subject of obedience has long been discussed all around the world. What is it that makes individuals follow orders or fall into line when told to by people in authority? Milgram (1963) became increasingly interested in the subject after the tragedies of the Second World War. He himself was of Jewish descent which situated him and informed his research and choices. Obedience as a determinant of behaviour can have catastrophic consequences, and through his studies of obedience Milgram was looking at the extent a participant will go with administering electric shocks to a victim in the presence of an individual in authority.
His family was primarily made up of Jewish immigrants; he grew up learning what happened to his relatives in Europe and he was particularly intrigued by Hannah Arendt’s report on the trial of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram wondered whether her claims about “the banality of evil” – that evil acts can come from ordinary people following orders as they do their jobs – could be demonstrated in the lab (Blass, 2002). The Milgram Obedience Experiment then began in July 1961, the same month as Adolf Eichmann’s trial (Greenwood, 2018). The experiment contained 3 people, the experimenter, the teacher, and the
Obedience in Humans In 1973 the article "The Stanford Prison Experiment" by Philip G. Zimbardo created an experiment to study the daily prison life. Without strict orders, a person would not act out in such a way. Following the rules and staying obedient the whole time is a question Zimbardo wanted to find out. Zimbardo was curious to see if people would conform to the specific role they are performing in order to show obedience.
Many of the accused got sentenced to life in prison or death. Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment to explain the correlation of the environmental aspects that make people do terrible things and how far people will go to harm others. Social pressures also play a big role in how people think. Minorities can have their ideas of what is right and what is wrong swept over by majorities which was displayed in Solomon Asch’s experiments. The most important thing to learn from the Nuremburg trials, Milgram’s experiment, and Asch’s experiment is that sometimes it is better to resist authority if it means following moral
As stated in our textbook, “Conformity is a change in behavior or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure.” One can believe that most people will torture an innocent person just because they are ordered to because of the conditioning received since childhood. Obedience is a type of social influence where someone acts in response to a direct order from an authoritative figure doing the influencing. The epitome experiment by Stanley Milgram concluded that most people followed orders from the authoritative figure regardless how immoral the act was. People continued to send electric shock to people knowing that it was causing pain and can possibly lead to death.
“The Perils of Obedience”, written by Stanley Milgram in 1973, explores how her experiment demonstrated people’s affinity to obey orders even if it means someone will get hurt. Milgram is a leading social psychologist who disproved previously considered notions about obedience and authority. Her work demonstrates how obedience trumps morality and gives support for this phenomena with examples from history. By using different participants’ reactions, the author is able to analyze the meaning behind the experiment.
Since the beginning of the human existence, man has always dominated and ruled over one another be it empires, corporations, or small groups. Authority and obedience has always been a factor of who we are. This natural occurrence can be seen clearly through the psychological experiments known as The Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. Both of these studies are based on how human beings react to authority figures and what their obedience is when faced with conflict.
The author explains that there are many philosophies about obedience but they don’t give much information about the behaviors of subjects in critical or complicated situation. Milgram sets up an experiment at Yale University to see the reaction of a citizen when ordered by the experimenter to hurt other person. The author
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
We have been trained to be obedient to authority. This quality is deep-rooted in us all from the manner in which we were brought up. It is natural for people to obey orders from those whom they recognized as their authority. This is the natural response to legitimate authority and can be learnt in a variety of situations. In a summary written in the article “The Perils of Obedience” (Milgram 1974), states: “The legal aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations.”
The line on the wall is not always clear. The vast majority of people like to think they will stand against the masses if they believe they are right, unfortunately this is far from the truth. Asch wanted to investigate what drove people to act the way they do in group settings, like in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Asch took a simplistic approach looking at what drove the need to conform and follow directions. He proves with his conformity experiment, just how completely our need to follow the crowd is, we are driven by the masses and our need to conform to the group standards of behavior.
They were trying to determine if, when everyone was facing the back of the elevator, would the innocent bystander do the same. What they found was that most of the people give in to conformity. It showed how people will change just to fit in. Furthermore, this experiment showed that a person’s own actions can be influenced by
In the article, the author accounts for how people act when under the leadership of a leader who utilizes coercive power. As stated by the author, “Employees may comply with a manager's directive because of fear or threat of punishment. Typical organizational punishments include reprimands, demotion, and dismissal.” (Luneneburg 3). The employees are more likely to do what is asked because of coercive power.