Essay On Obeying Authority

When obeying authority one can often loose thought of morals and beliefs. In the experiments the men obey the authority figure by doing cruel things they would not usually do. These experiments turn mentally stable men into a person willing to inflict harsh punishments on innocent people while following orders. Night by Elie Wiesel, The Milgram Shock Experiment, and the stanford prison experiment shows how obedience to an authority can cause people to stray from their conscience. In the Stanford Prison experiment the men were deindividualized from the start of the experiment. The men obeyed orders from Zimbardo to have them stripped of all personal possessions and the prisoners were given a jumpsuit and bedding and assigned a number to be addressed by, while the guards were given a uniform with sunglasses, a whistle, and a billy club. By obeying the first orders of Zimbardo the men had already been deindividualized
When asked to continue administering shocks the teachers would tend to obey the orders from the experimenter allowing the experimenter to act through them and causing them to Enter an agentic state. “People will obey an authority when they believe that the authority will take responsibility for the consequences of their actions”(Milgram 3). When the teachers did not administer a shock they were read a series of prods in order to ensure the authority of the experimenter as well as giving responsibility to the experimenter. “When participants were reminded that they had responsibility for their own actions, almost none of them were prepared to obey”( Milgram 3). When the teachers were faced with the responsibility of their actions none of them were willing to proceed with the experiment, but when relieved of responsibility of actions the teachers entered an agentic state allowing an obedience to the