Preview

Milgrams Study

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
441 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Milgrams Study
Name: Andraie Lewis
Date: 11/27/2012
Subject: Psychology Stanley Milgram’s study on Obedience
In a recent issue of American psychologist, Diana Baumrind (1964) raised a number of questions concerning the obedience report. (Milgram). Many would argue that Stanley Milgram’s experiment was unethical, because they believe that the research caused the subjects psychological stress that was not resolved after the study, however, I beg to differ. In his own words Stanley Milgram said, “In my judgment, at no point were subjects exposed to danger and at no point did they run the risk of injurious effects resulting from participation. If it had been otherwise, the experiment would have been terminated at once.” Not to mention, he made a very important point about obedience.
Stanley Milgram had an impartial medical examiner to do a follow-up study on the subjects a year after they had participated in his research to find out if his experiment led to any possible injurious effects. The examiner concluded that, “although extreme stress had been experienced by several subjects, none was found by this interviewer to show signs of having been harmed by his experience…” Stanley’s obedience study was indeed mind-boggling, but he made a valuable point that man should not allow an higher authority figure gaining so much control and forcing them to do something immoral and against their will. “This experiment has strengthened my belief that man should avoid harm to his fellow man even at the risk of violating authority.” (Milgrm).
“To me, the experiment pointed up…the extent to which each individual should have or discover firm ground on which to base his decisions, no matter how trivial they appear to be. I think people should think more deeply about themselves and their relation to their world and to other people. If this experiment serves to jar people out of complacency, it will have served its end.”(Milgram).
In no way did I saw Milgram’s

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In Stanley Milgram’s “The Perils of Obedience,” Stanley Milgram designed an experiment that would involve an experimenter, a teacher, and a learner to determine how far obedience would play a role on willing participants. The purpose of Milgram’s experiment is to see how far a willing participant would go based on orders to continue knowing that the orders would result in another person’s pain. The experiment was set up so that two willing participants went into the experiment understanding that they were taking part in a memory and learning exercise. One of the two willing participants played the role as the…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Stanley Milgrams experiments are some of the most recognized behavior experiments in psychology today. Milgrams most known experiment was ‘shocking’ to people and has also been controversial ethically. As Ian Parker stated it would “make his name and destroy his reputation.” Parkers Obedience essay talks much of Milgrams life before the experiment and how the psychology community thought about his ethics.…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    John Darley’s criticism focuses on how the findings of the obedience experiments are applied to historical or real-world situations. He points out many ways in which the behavior of the obedience subjects in Milgram’s study differs drastically from the behavior of many others who commit atrocities: Nazi doctors or concentration camp executioners, for instance (Darley 133-134). However, since Darley’s criticism focuses on the behavioral differences between the obedience study and historical events, Milgram responds in a strong, convincing way. Referring to the process of comparing laboratory studies with real-world situations, Milgram writes, “The problem of generalizing from one to the other does not consist of point-for-point comparison between one and the other... but depends on whether one has reached a correct theoretical understanding of…

    • 1351 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In Replicating Milgram (The Open University, 2014), Milgram explains how he set up his obedience experiment. His aim was to get a volunteer, a ‘teacher’ to inflict increasing amounts of pain, through electric shocks, to another volunteer a ‘learner’ and to see when the ‘teacher’ would turn to the researcher, the ‘authority figure’ and ask to stop. Unknown to ‘the teacher’, the ‘learner’ and the ‘authority figure’ were aware of the real purpose of the experiment; the ‘teacher’ was told it was to study the effect of punishment on learning, and genuinely thought that they were inflicting pain on the ‘learner’ sat in another room. It was this deception and the emotional stress it generated to the ‘teacher’ that prompted the ethical issues debate…

    • 128 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Milgram experiment was not done appropriately due to certain procedure taken place in the experiment. This would include the dishonesty and stress placed upon the teacher. The experiment was dishonest because it attracted the public by saying, “a study of memory…

    • 184 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    milgrams obedience study

    • 409 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The experiment was inspired by the Holocaust - were the Germans in league with the Nazis, or where they simply following orders as they exterminated the Nazi's victims? Milgram wanted to study whether people would obey an authority figure, or would their own morals make them stop the experiment?…

    • 409 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Evaluate Milgram's Study

    • 799 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Milgram did a lab experiment, varying different situational pressures to see which had the greatest effect on obedience. He told 40 male volunteers that it was a study of how punishment affects learning. After drawing lots, the real participant was assigned the role of 'teacher'. The learner was a confederate. The teachers job was to administrate a learning task and deliver 'electric shocks' to the learner (in another room) if he got a question wrong. The shocks began at 15 volts and increased in increment of 15 volts to a maximum of 450 volts.…

    • 799 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over the past century, the field of Psychology has prospered, giving way to a more in depth knowledge and understanding of people’s social interactions with one another and what drives those connections. 20th century psychologist, Stanley Milgram, executed a series of Obedience to Authority test on random participants. As seen in the YouTube videos online and in class, Milgram’s study found that over 65% of the participants carried out the experiment, despite potentially hurting someone, due to the authority figure urging them to continue.…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Obedience and Authority Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram wrote an article, "The Perils of Obedience," which documented his unique experiment about obedience and authority. The purpose was to observe to what extent an ordinary citizen would compromise his or her conscience when ordered to inflict increasing pain to another human. The experiment consisted of three people: a teacher and learner chosen at random, and a scientist. Once all three were acquainted, the scientist explained that the goal of the experiment was to research the effects of discipline. Thereafter, the learner was strapped to a chair with an electrode attached to their wrist.…

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In 1963, Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted a series of social psychology experiments to study the conditions under which the people are obedient to authorities and personal conscience. The purpose of his experiment was to determine whether or not people were particularly obedient to the higher authority who instructed them to perform various acts even if they violate their own morals and ethics. It was one of the most famous studies of obedience in psychology as it has inspired other researchers to explore what makes people question authority and more importantly, what leads them to follow orders. There were several replications of his experiment and the results were identical to those reported by Milgram about how…

    • 1558 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Milgram's experiment in 1960 by social psychologist Dr. Stanely Milgram's (1963, 1965) was a controversial experiment. He researched the effect of authority on obedience. I don't think the scientific community overreacted to this experiment because it is unethical to reduce subjects to "twitching shuttering wrecks". Though the human mind is amazing strong we still do not know its breaking point. For interviewers to carry out the kind of experiment they did, they have to be willing to face the consequences of the experiment which could be a permanent damaged mental state. I do believe we need to do experiments like this as the outcome was very eye opening but it has to be better regulated and the background and methods of experimentation clearly…

    • 580 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Perils of Obedience, Stanley Milgram expresses his findings of an experiment he conducted trying to prove the lengths people will go to be obedient to authority.…

    • 407 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    While the test subject is in complete control over when the experiment can be stopped based on their own level of morals, it would not be considered proper to put the test subject in an environment like this that could be perceived as “hostile” without their complete knowledge of their part in the experiment. It would be impossible to inform the test subjects about the extremely stressful experiment they would be taking place in without informing them on exactly what they would be doing, and in this experiment, the discretion of the test was important to get clear and true results. Another immoral part of Milgram’s experiment was the severe psychological stress imposed on the applicants. Numerous participants stated that they felt extremely uncomfortable about what they were expected to do, although a sizable amount of the members in the primary trials subsequently pronounced that they felt vastly pleased to have been chosen to take part in the experiment. Another immoral aspect of the experiment was the fact that the test subject was not expressly given the right to withdrawal from the experiment, and were continuously given orders to continue the experiment. Milgram claimed that in this experiment strict orders were essential to…

    • 1583 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Discuss the ethics of Milgram's obedience study. In the years 1961-1962, Stanley Milgram - Yale University psychologist, conducted the first of the obedience experiments, which were also called "shock" studies. The research was invented to check if the people would be ready to harm somebody just to meet the requirements of the experiment. This essay will be focused on the ethical side of the study.…

    • 594 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Chapter 16 Psychology

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages

    23. What is obedience? What was Stanley Milgram’s experiment? What are factors that affected the level of obedience in the individuals he studied?…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Powerful Essays