Milgram's Principles On Why People Obey
Milgram (1974) gave reasons for obedience. Obedience is a type of influence causing a person to act person to act in response to a direct order from someone with perceived authority. In this essay I am going to explain Milgram’s reasons on why people obey.
The process of learning throughout life or when a person learns to adjust to a group and act like the group is called socialisation. It is a central influence on behaviour, beliefs action but the society that one is raised in can also affect the level if independence. Goldhagen (1996) blamed anti- Semitism rather that obedience. He said it was the ordinary Germans; (mainly Christians) who caused the holocaust because the traditional church teaching that blamed the Jews for the death of Christ. The German society had made people suspicious and …show more content…
This might be a result of socialisation because from a very early age people are told what to do by their parents and carers. This means doing what we are told becomes a habit because we are always told what to do and what not to do by an adult figure when we are children, so we get used to obeying in that sense. (Milgram,1974) in his experiment the participants obeyed mostly because they believed that the experimenter had power. Milgram also believed that his participants were just following orders and they did not consider themselves responsible for what happened. This shows that people obey more when the person experimenting is wearing something that makes them stand out as high authority.
Another Agency theory explanation of why people obey authority figures to the extent that cruelty actions are committed. It also explains why US Army soldiers tortured Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib in 2003 and 2004 (Fiske et al. 2004). Brown, R. (1986). Social Forces in Obedience and Rebellion. Social Psychology: The Second Edition. New York: The Free
The process of learning throughout life or when a person learns to adjust to a group and act like the group is called socialisation. It is a central influence on behaviour, beliefs action but the society that one is raised in can also affect the level if independence. Goldhagen (1996) blamed anti- Semitism rather that obedience. He said it was the ordinary Germans; (mainly Christians) who caused the holocaust because the traditional church teaching that blamed the Jews for the death of Christ. The German society had made people suspicious and …show more content…
This might be a result of socialisation because from a very early age people are told what to do by their parents and carers. This means doing what we are told becomes a habit because we are always told what to do and what not to do by an adult figure when we are children, so we get used to obeying in that sense. (Milgram,1974) in his experiment the participants obeyed mostly because they believed that the experimenter had power. Milgram also believed that his participants were just following orders and they did not consider themselves responsible for what happened. This shows that people obey more when the person experimenting is wearing something that makes them stand out as high authority.
Another Agency theory explanation of why people obey authority figures to the extent that cruelty actions are committed. It also explains why US Army soldiers tortured Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib in 2003 and 2004 (Fiske et al. 2004). Brown, R. (1986). Social Forces in Obedience and Rebellion. Social Psychology: The Second Edition. New York: The Free