Preview

The Milgram Experiment

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1289 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Milgram Experiment
Stanley Milgram: 'electric shock' experiments (1963) - also showed the power of the situation in influencing behaviour. 65% of people could be easily induced into giving a stranger an electric shock of 450V (enough to kill someone). 100% of people could be influenced into giving a 275V shock.
The Milgram Experiment
Stanley Milgram (1963)
Experiment: Focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience.
Investigate: Whether Germans were particularly obedient to authority figures as this was a common explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II.
Milgram selected participants for his experiment by advertising for male participants to take part in a study of learning at Yale University. The procedure was that the participant was paired with another person and they drew lots to find out who would be the ‘learner’ and who would be the ‘teacher’. The draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher, and the learner was one of Milgram’s confederates (pretending to be a real participant).

The learner (a confederate called Mr. Wallace) was taken into a room and had electrodes attached to his arms, and the teacher and researcher went into a room next door that contained an electric shock generator and a row of switches marked from 15 volts (Slight Shock) to 375 volts (Danger: Severe Shock) to 450 volts (XXX).

Milgram's Experiment

Aim:
Milgram (1963) was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. Stanley Milgram was interested in how easily ordinary people could be influenced into committing atrocities for example, Germans in WWII.

Procedure:
Volunteers were recruited for a lab experiment investigating “learning” (ethics: deception). Participants were 40 males, aged between 20 and 50, (bias: All male) whose jobs ranged from unskilled to professional.
At the beginning of the experiment they were introduced to another participant, who was

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • 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
  • Good Essays

    Most people would agree with doing something horrific to another person, since it is easier to conform, than to fight, people tend to protect themselves before protecting a stranger. Stanley Milgram put a study together to prove that Germans are more likely to be obedient to authority then American are. The study was called “If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably.” Milgram explains the character aspects of why people listen to authority and why they afraid not to. Social structure and the organization of society have a powerful affect on people. Milgrams set out to New Haven to start the study ad later on planed to go to Germany to do the study on the society there.…

    • 453 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

    This experiment speaks to the 'nature of responsibility' and to see if the subject will stop the experiment…

    • 343 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It is clearly shown when the difference in people's malicious behavior when shocking the students in the presence of authority and when given the freedom to choose the level of shock. The thesis of Milgram's essay was that obedience is a deeply ingrained behavior tendency; indeed, a potent impulse overriding reining ethics, sympathy and moral conduct is right on the dot. He also discusses the extreme willingness of man to obey authority at any length. This shows that "ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process." This is proven by the fact that the majority of people were willing to shock students almost to the assumed point of death when instructed to do so by a…

    • 585 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    An advertisement was placed in a newspaper to ask for volunteers, which inspired 296 people to respond to the advertisement. However, Milgram was aiming for a larger sample size, therefore invitation letters were posted out to several thousand people, with approximately 12 % of return rate. Participants ranged between 20 and 50 years old from varying occupations. Misleading the participants, Milgram told them that the aim of the study is to determine ‘the effect of punishment on learning’ (Milgram, 1974). However the true purpose of the study was to identify how far would participants go to comply with the authority (the experimenter) before disobeying the authority…

    • 1363 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Imagine yourself being shocked as an act of you incorrectly answering a question. In the Milgram Experiment, 40 men were recruited using newspaper ads in order to preform a test that would question human obedience. The question posed was: would they comply with an authority figures commands because they were stressed to, or would they comply because they thought it was the noble thing to do? The results clearly show that under authority, people will comply with what they are told to do even if they don't agree with it. Opening, obviously under certain circumstances people will change how they behave.…

    • 499 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The second set of experiments included professionals, white collar workers, unemployed persons, and industrial workers. Although Milgram’s colleague asserted the outcome would be different when performed with “ordinary” subjects, the outcome was very much the same. The experiments were also conducted in other countries around the world and scientists found that the level of obedience was actually somewhat higher. (para. 28)…

    • 407 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Respondents were being informed that the experiment would analyze how being punished could have an effect on learning aptitude. Three individuals would be involved in the experiment, one person who would be the “experimenter”, one person who would be the “teacher” and one person who would be the “learner.” The experimenter was in charge of the entire experiment, giving orders to the teacher when they were hesitant to perform their duties, and would continuously remind the teacher that they must continue the trial, even when they began to feel uncomfortable with their part in the experiment. The role of experimenter would be filled by someone who was completely aware of the experiment, and would try their best to keep the experiment going for as long as they could. The teacher was meant to listen and obey the rules of the experimenter and deliver unpleasant stimuli to the learner when ordered to by the experimenter. The learner was supposed to memorize word pairings and then answer questions about these word pairings to the best of…

    • 1583 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    One experiment, called The Milgram experiment, also raised ethical concern. The experiment consisted of 40 men recruited using newspaper ads. The participants were paid $4.50 for their involvement in the study. Milgram…

    • 1492 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Zimbardo

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Orne & Holland (1968) blame Milgram’s study of lacking ‘experimental realism’. The participants might not have believed the experimental set-up they found themselves in and knew the learner was not really receiving electric shocks. Research supports Milgram’s evidence, that without deception he would have had incorrect results. Rosenhan (1966) copied the study and people had heard of Milgram’s experiment and Rosenhan’s results were 70% as participants thought it was true. Milgram in his defence again explained if the participants were to know the truth that the experiment was not real, the results would have been different and this would have affected the end result.…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The draw was naturally fixed, as the participant was always the teacher and the learner were a confederates or allies of Milgram. The confederate’s task was to pretend to be a real participant and act as the learner. The learner, a real confederate named Mr. Wallace, was taken into a room and connected to electrodes. The teacher and the researcher would proceed to the next room which contained an electric shock generator and a set of controls labeled 15 volts to 375 volts to 450 volts. The 15-volt control was also labeled as Slight Shock, 375 volts was labels as Danger: Severe Shock and the 450-volt control was labeled as…

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He set out to prove that individuals would obey with the request of authority figures. McLeod in his summary states, “Milgram was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. Stanley Milgram was interested in how easily ordinary people could be influenced into committing atrocities for example, Germans in WWII.” (McLeod, The Milgram Experiment, 2007) The experiment was carried out by asking participants/teachers to deliver a series of electrical shocks to another person when a question was answered incorrectly. Also, if a mistake was made, the teacher could deliver an increased voltage level to the student. The general findings were that individuals who were going to disobey were those who responded not to the learner’s cries of pain but to the learners request to be set free. People are more likely to obey if there is an authority figure there to take the blame. “The power of legitimate, close-at-hand authorities is dramatically apparent in stories of those who complied with orders to carry out the atrocities of the Holocaust, and those who didn’t.” (Social Psychology) Milgram’s experiment further proves that obedience plays a major part in behavior and people are going to do what is necessary to fit…

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Psych Ambiguous Figures

    • 421 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The participants for this procedure were chosen by random assignment. The experiment was held in Mrs. Walsack’s classroom 9th hour. The population was highly diverse and ranged with in different thought patterns, and different racial and economic backgrounds. Problems occurring with this procedure would have been with the individuals themselves. The environment and the researcher were held at a constant during the entire experiment. However, this class is…

    • 421 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays