Obedience A Monster
Does Obedience make a Monster?
For many years, a popular question that people ask to those who follow a leader “How far would you go for them?”. This question has been answered many times by not only the people in these situations, like those in Democratic Kampuchea (Pina et al., 2010, p. 291), but also scientists like Stanley Milgram (Milgram, 1965, p. 59). These assurances are important to study to be able to understand the psychological effects that these types of relationships have. The first thing that will be examined is Stanley Milgram’s original experiment. Milgram’s experiment was conducted at Yale University, this experiment consisted of “forty males between the ages of twenty and fifty” (1963, p. 2). These men came to the experiment …show more content…
The overarching theme being obedience, but these studies also showed how fear can be used to make someone become obedient as well. Overall, Pina et al. study solidifies much of Milgram’s original study. In the first study, Milgram’s experiment showed that if a superior tells a follower to do something they will do it. They will follow those in power blindly even if it means hurting another human. Pina et al. study show that someone can raise children to do whatever they want as long as they perceive that a superior wants them to. The two studies are very similar if it is looked at in a broad sense. In both studies “prods” were used to encourage the continuation of the study, for Milgram’s it was sayings such as “you must go on” (1963, p. 4). In Pina et al. case, it was propaganda that was shown to the children to make them believe that the “bourgeois” was their true enemy and not the people killing their families (2010, p. 291). Both forms of “prods” where successful in motivating the “participants” to do as the superior wanted. The Red Khmer army was able to make the children they kidnapped do as they wish, even to the extent of killing someone. Milgram’s study is proved because the Democratic Kampuchea was not an experiment but a real-life encounter with manipulative people. Since it was not in a lab and no one was setting out to do an experiment on obedience, this army set out on taking over a city. This example then becomes one for Milgram’s study. Milgram set out to see how far obedience would make a person go, not knowing that he would find out information that he would later claim to be disturbing (1965, p. 75), and the study of the Democratic Kampuchea supports his
For many years, a popular question that people ask to those who follow a leader “How far would you go for them?”. This question has been answered many times by not only the people in these situations, like those in Democratic Kampuchea (Pina et al., 2010, p. 291), but also scientists like Stanley Milgram (Milgram, 1965, p. 59). These assurances are important to study to be able to understand the psychological effects that these types of relationships have. The first thing that will be examined is Stanley Milgram’s original experiment. Milgram’s experiment was conducted at Yale University, this experiment consisted of “forty males between the ages of twenty and fifty” (1963, p. 2). These men came to the experiment …show more content…
The overarching theme being obedience, but these studies also showed how fear can be used to make someone become obedient as well. Overall, Pina et al. study solidifies much of Milgram’s original study. In the first study, Milgram’s experiment showed that if a superior tells a follower to do something they will do it. They will follow those in power blindly even if it means hurting another human. Pina et al. study show that someone can raise children to do whatever they want as long as they perceive that a superior wants them to. The two studies are very similar if it is looked at in a broad sense. In both studies “prods” were used to encourage the continuation of the study, for Milgram’s it was sayings such as “you must go on” (1963, p. 4). In Pina et al. case, it was propaganda that was shown to the children to make them believe that the “bourgeois” was their true enemy and not the people killing their families (2010, p. 291). Both forms of “prods” where successful in motivating the “participants” to do as the superior wanted. The Red Khmer army was able to make the children they kidnapped do as they wish, even to the extent of killing someone. Milgram’s study is proved because the Democratic Kampuchea was not an experiment but a real-life encounter with manipulative people. Since it was not in a lab and no one was setting out to do an experiment on obedience, this army set out on taking over a city. This example then becomes one for Milgram’s study. Milgram set out to see how far obedience would make a person go, not knowing that he would find out information that he would later claim to be disturbing (1965, p. 75), and the study of the Democratic Kampuchea supports his