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Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiments
In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements in MT/STS1
Submitted by:
Group 4
Alvanrhyl Ampo
Mark Artieda
Neil Adryan Dacudao
Daniel Tristan Espanola
Jastine May Cabrillos
Robin Carla Feliciano
Chareon Kaye Saljay
Submitted to:
Professor Maria Bea C. Lao, RMT
Date Submitted:
September 17, 2011
Introduction
“Obedience is the mother of success and the wife of security.”
- Aeschylus, Greek Dramatist, 525-456 B.C.
When people are ordered by an
authority figure to engage in a particular
behaviour, you might expect that their
need for personal control would result in a
good deal of disobedience. If the order
was to engage in behaviour that appeared
to pose serious health risks to others, you
might predict that wide-scale
disobedience would occur. Would it? What
would you do under such circumstances?
Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was an
American social psychologist most notable for his controversial study known
as Milgram’s Obedience Experiment. The study was conducted in the 1960s
during Milgram’s professorship at Yale University.
One factor that led to the obedience study was Milgram’s concern for
the Holocaust. The experiment was designed as a response to the notorious
trials of Nazi war criminals, who claimed that they were “just following
orders”. He wanted to establish whether people really would obey authority
figures, even when the instructions given were morally wrong.
The virtual annihilation of the European Jewish community could not
have happened without the cooperation of thousands of ordinary citizens –
bureaucrats, soldiers, janitors, doctors, railroad workers, carpenters. Why did
so many people comply with the Nazi regime? Did their compliance emerge
from pathological characteristics of the German people? Or, more
frighteningly, did following orders arise out of the normal operation of
everyday social processes, such as simple obedience to authority? To answer
these questions, let’s explore the most discussed social psychological study
ever conducted by Stanley Milgram.
Main Body
In the 1960’s, Stanley Milgram (1963, 1974) designed a series of
laboratory experiments to understand the issues involved in obedience to
authority. Milgram’s work has become an enduring classic in social
psychology. He began his research by placing newspaper ads asking for men
to participate in a psychology study. The volunteers were scheduled in pairs
and were told that the purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of
punishment on learning. One of them was selected by chance as the
“learner” and the other as the “teacher”. The teacher’s job was to read aloud
pairs of words that the learner was supposed to memorize. Each time the
learner made a mistake, the teacher was to administer a punishment.
The teacher sat in front of a
large, impressive “shock machine”
containing a long series of levers,
each labelled with the amount of
shock it would deliver. The range was
from 15-450 volts. Above the
numbers representing voltage were
labels describing the severity of the shock such as “Slight”, “Extreme
Intensity Shock”, and “Danger: Severe Shock”.
The learner was put in a chair in another room. His arm was strapped
down to the chair and electrodes were taped to his arm. He could not be
seen by the teacher or anyone else; they communicated entirely by
intercom. Before the testing began, the learner mentioned that he had a
slightly weak heart. He was assured by the experimenter that the shocks
were not dangerous. Then the experimenter gave the teacher a sample
shock, to give him some idea of what the shocks he would be delivering felt
like. It was actually fairly severe and hurt considerably, but the teacher was
told it was a mild shock.
During the testing, the learner made a number
of errors. Each time, the teacher told him he was
wrong and delivered a shock. Whenever a shock
was given, the learner grunted. As the level of
shock increased, the learner’s reactions became
increasingly dramatic. He yelled, begged the
teacher to stop shocking him, pounded the
table, and kicked the wall. Toward the end, he
simply stopped answering and made no
response at all. Through all this, the experimenter urged the teacher to
continue: “Please continue”. “The experiment must go on”. “It is necessary
for you to continue”. The subject was assured that the responsibility was the
experimenter’s and not his.
Under these circumstances, a
large number of subjects
dutifully delivered supposedly
severe electric shocks. The
results were summarized in
Table 1.The results were as
follows: All 40 subjects delivered
the 300-volt shock, and 65
percent continued to the final
450-volt level. They did this
even though the person they
were shocking screamed for
mercy, had a heart condition, and was apparently experiencing great pain. In
reality, of course, the “learner” was a confederate of the experimenter and
Table 1
did not receive any shocks. All responses, including errors, grunts and groans
were carefully rehearsed and then tape-recorded to make them identical for
all subjects. The “teacher”, however, had no way of knowing that the
situation was staged.
In a series of 18 studies, Milgram identified conditions that increase or
decrease obedience. The table below summarizes Milgram’s findings.
Situations that made individuals feel more responsible for their own actions
or that emphasized the suffering of the victim reduced the amount of
obedience. Say for example, bringing the victim closer to the subject
substantially reduced obedience. Obedience was greatest when the victim
was in
another
room and
could not be
heard or
could be
heard only
through an
intercom.
Obedience
decreased
when the victim was in the same room and it dropped still more when the
subject had to touch the victim to administer the shock. Reminding subjects
of their own personal responsibility for their actions also reduced the number
of shocks they administered.
Milgram also found that physical presence of the experimenter made a
difference. Obedience was greatest when the experimenter was in the same
room with the subject and decreased if the experimenter communicated by
phone from another room or simply left tape-recorded instructions. It was
harder to disobey the authority figure if he was closely monitoring the
subject’s behaviour. Finally, in other variations of the experiment, subjects
administered shocks as part of a group of teachers. (In reality, only one of
the teachers was a naive subject.) When the real subject merely watched as
peers administered shocks, 93 percents of subjects obeyed the experimenter
fully. In contrast, when two defiant peers (actually confederates) stopped
administering shocks early in the experiment, 90 percent of subjects also
stopped. The behaviour of peers proved a powerful force that could support-
or defy – the authority of the experimenter.
Participants in the Milgram studies often experienced considerable
stress. Some began to sweat; others broke out into nervous laughter or
stuttered. They often pleaded with the experimenter to end the study. The
subjects were not callous about the situation, but rather experienced great
conflict. They felt enormous pressures from the situation and the
experimenter to continue. But they were also concerned about the welfare of
the victim and about their personal responsibility for inflicting pain. As long
as subjects could shift responsibility to the experimenter and minimize their
own minds the pain the victim was enduring, obedience was so high. To the
extent that they felt personally responsible and were aware of the victim’s
pain, they were less obedient.
No one anticipated the levels of obedience that Milgram observed. To
demonstrate this point, he described his procedures in detail to psychiatrists,
college students, and middle-class adults. Virtually everyone predicted that
subjects would quickly stop giving shocks once the learner protested. The
psychiatrists predicted that most subjects would not go beyond 150 volts
when the victim first demanded to be let go, and that only one subject in a
thousand would administer the highest level of shock on the board. One
contribution of this research was to show that even experts could not
accurately predict what subjects would actually do in the powerful situation
created in Milgram’s laboratory.
Milgram interpreted his findings as showing that “normal” people can
be led to perform destructive acts when exposed to strong situational
pressure from a legitimate authority: “Men who are in everyday life
responsible and decent were seduced by the trappings of authority... and by
the uncritical acceptance of the experimenter’s definition of the situation
into performing harsh acts.” Miller (1986) has called this the “normality
thesis” – the idea that evil acts are not necessarily performed by abnormal or
“crazy” people. Rather, average individuals who see themselves as mere
agents in an organization, carrying out the orders of those in command, can
behave in destructive ways. The Milgram studies are a compelling reminder
of the power of social situations to influence human behaviour.
Although the pressures to obey legitimate authorities are strong,
individuals do not inevitably obey. For example, on helping behaviour, we
describe the actions of the Christians who risked their lives to shelter Jews
from Nazi prosecution. What enabled these individuals to resist Nazi policies
and more generally, how can we account for principled resistance to
authority?
Several factors seem to make a difference. First, obedience is reduced
when the suffering of the victims is highly salient. Second, obedience is
reduced when an individual is made to feel personally responsible for his or
her actions. Third, people are more likely to resist authority when others in
the situation model disobedience. Fourth, encouraging individuals to
question the motives, expertise, or judgment of authorities can also reduce
obedience.
The Ethics of Obedience Research
Disadvantages
Finally, this discussion of the Milgram studies should not end without
noting that Milgram’s research sparked an unprecedented debate about the
ethics of psychological research. Diana Baumrind (1964) severely criticized
Milgram for exposing participants to psychological distress, embarrassment,
and loss of dignity. She suggested that Milgram did not take seriously
enough how subjects reacted to his study, and she questioned whether the
debriefing following the experiment was able to restore the subjects’
psychological well-being. She worried that in the long run, those who
participated in Milgram’s research may have suffered a loss of self-esteem
and that the deception used in the study may have reduced participants’
trust in authorities.
Advantages
Milgram (1964) offered a strong defense of his research. He
emphasized that the study was not ultimately harmful to subjects. He
explained the detailed and thoughtful nature of the explanations given to
participants at the end of the experimental session. He also noted that a
one-year follow-up of participants found no evidence of long-term
psychological harm. Indeed, most subjects expressed positive feelings about
the research. Milgram also emphasized the value of his research. Neither he
nor his colleagues had expected the high levels of obedience they found, and
so important new information about human behaviour was provided.
Psychological science has weathered the storm created by the Milgram
controversy and has learned a good deal in the process. Today,
psychologists are much more aware of the potential risks of psychological
research. In addition, the U.S. government has established strict guidelines
for the protection of human research participants. An important part of
current procedures is that research projects must be evaluated in advance
by a panel of experts, so that an individual researcher can no longer decide
that a study is ethically sound. It is doubtful that the Milgram studies made
them ethically justifiable.
Reflection
Alvanrhyl P. Ampo BMLS-2H
"With numbing regularity good people were seen to knuckle under the
demands of authority and perform actions that were callous and severe.”
-Stanley Milgram
Every day we hear commands such as “Wash the dishes!”, “Help with
the Group report!” and etc. but what makes us obey or disobey this orders?
In the context of prisoner brutality during wars, what makes a soldier follow a
commander’s order to torture the prisoners of war? Does the statement “I
just follow the order of my superior” a justifiable reason?
With regards to the questions on the preceding paragraph, which is
about obedience to authority, a well-known psychologist and professor of
Yale University, in the name of Stanley Milgram attempted to answer our
inquiry by his experiment. The experiment was also done in attempt to
account with the holocaust. Moreover, the experiment also extended the
line of study of the preceding researchers in an effort to understand how a
civilized country such as Germany fell under the influence of a ruthless
dictator like Hitler. Milgram’s experiments have shown itself to be fruitful,
fruitful enough to gain praise and ethical issues that indeed made it famous
and controversial.
While I was reading how the experiment performed, my first
impression to the method was it is somewhat cruel for it evolves shocking
the “learner”. However, as I was contemplating the totality of the procedure,
I noticed that the unethical part in the experiment is the deception of the
participants and the convincing of participants by the experimenter to
continue even if they were reluctant. In the issue of psychological stress and
discomfort on the participant, follow-up on participants have found no
evidence of long-term psychological harm. In my own point of view, the
method of research was acceptable because it proved to be free of long-term
psychological harm although the participants were noticeably trembling and
reluctant. I also think that the deception of participants is an essential part of
the experiment in order to get the genuine reaction of the participants.
On the brighter side of the experiment, it showed a significant findings
which can be equated to Sigmund Freud’s work. The data procured was
contrary with what was expected. Even I predicted a large percentage of
disobedience but as I read the discussion of results, it brought me
amazement. The experiment indeed revolutionized the way of thinking on
human obedience to authority. Variations of the experiment also tell us how
the distance of the “experimenter” and the “learner” to the “teacher”, and
the influence of “other teachers” affect the obedience of the “teacher”.
In conclusion, Milgram’s experiments may have been tarnished with
ethical issues but, it emerged to be victorious and have been a
revolutionizing fact that changed the understanding of human psyche, in the
context obedience to authority.
References
Franzoi, Stephen L. (2000, 1996). Social Psychology (Second Edition). United
States of America, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Pages 297-298
Levin, Irwin P., Ainrichs, James V. (1995). Experimental Psychology,
Contemporary Methods and Applications. United States of America, WM.C.
Brown Communications, Inc. Pages 278-279, 282
Taylor, Shelley E., Peplau, Letitia Anne, Et. al (2000). Social Psychology
(Tenth Edition). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, United States of America,
Prentice-Hall , Inc. Pages 224-227
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Milgram
http://www.experiment-resources.com/milgram-experiment-ethics.html
http://www.stanleymilgram.com/pdf/roots.pdf
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