THE MILGRAM STUDY:

THE TERRIFYING EXPERIMENT AND THE MORE TERRIFYING

REALITY By: Emad EMAM- April 2012

The university of Liverpool – Department of Applied Psychology

We always struggle when it comes to understanding the causes behind immoral actions when almost ordinary people do them. In that sense, the paradigm of authority and obedience was the focus of many psychologists in order to comprehend why ordinary people misconduct in an extreme way. So far, People are boiled with curiosity to know the answer of questions like: How people could use authority to cause severe harm for others? To which extent is a man ready to torture any other body just to follow orders?

Genuine Violence: Since the early ages of humanity, world witnessed huge number of massacres that still questionable by everybody. Among many, humanity will never forget the genocide for millions of people committed by Adolf Hitler and his loyalists before and during the World War II, adding to this the genocidal mass slaughter in Rwanda in 1994 that murdered around 20%1 of the total population of the country at that time. Moreover, few years ago people woke up

                                                                                                                         1  Des  Forges,  Alison  (1999).  Leave  No  One  to  Tell  the  Story:  Genocide  in  Rwanda.  Human  Rights  Watch.retirved  from  

http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno1-­‐3-­‐

01.htm#P6_41  

one day to see the photos of American soldiers smiling while torturing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, which was horrifying. Some of the soldiers defended themselves by claiming they were just doing what their superiors had instructed, but the smiling faces in the photos seemed to imply that they followed the orders without protest2.

Accordingly, in the study of violence committed by human beings in actual situations not an experiment, the experiment seemingly is less terrifying. And the question showing up is: Do we gain very much from a simulated artificially provoked glimpse of inhumanity when there are so many genuine historical precedents on which to draw?” (Blass, 2004, p. 296).

Experimental Violence: The experiment has shown that a group of volunteers are ready to follow and obey orders even by torturing others. Observantly, those 40 persons/ Subjects (Ss) who exceeded the 300 volts (Shock

                                                                                                                         2  Basic  Instincts:  The  Science  of  Evil  -­‐  By  CAROLINE  BORGE  ,  Jan.  3,  

2007    (http://abcnews.com  )  

Level)3 were just volunteers neither ideologists nor politicians. Moreover, they didn’t suffer from any mental disease such as sadism; also they were not under pressure of thread or seduction from a repressive power over them. Financial wise, they took a very few amount of money. They were totally ordinary people with no significant seemingly interest for that action. The experiment reflects the readiness of people to be easily, smoothly and irresistibly controlled over and violate others’ rights just for a set of claimed motives. And that rationalizes the black history of human since he was created/ found on earth.

Understanding violence in the light of both experiment and genuine: Historically, regarding all the massacre of humanity disasters there were strong causes lie behind them. For instance, in the case of Holocaust, psychologists viewed the problem from a situational approach based on contextual factors such as massive poverty, humiliation from a previous World War, and the influence of a charismatic, authoritative figure4. While for Milgram experiment, the contextual surroundings were very motivating for the

                                                                                                                         3Milgram,  S.  (1963).  Behavioral  study  of  obedience.  Journal  of  

Abnormal  and  Social  Psychology,67(4),  371–378.  Retrieved  

from  http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/login.aspx?di

rect=true&db=pdh&AN=abn-­‐67-­‐4-­‐371&site=ehost-­‐

live&scope=site  4    Week  3  Weekly  Notes:  Foundations  of  Psychology  perspective  

in  applied  psychology  -­‐  Laureate  Online  Education  B.V.  

Ss. Despite, the absolutely not accurate predictions of psychologists for the behavior of the Ss before the experiment, the environment counts in terms of transgressing those predictions. Identifying a cause (Learning and punishment research) and having the experimenter with such impassive features are basically the major supporters for Ss to exceed all the predictions. Also, the place setup was supportive, as it helped the Ss to understand that everything is ready and this is worth a try.

For example, why people joining army have to stay in closed camps? Military sciences have developed a certain method to make fighter - an ordinary person who kills another person for the sake of defending his homeland. Individuals who have recently joined the army are brought to an isolated place in harsh living conditions. They are kept far from the normal community and what is acceptable there. They get to learn the concept of enemy and absorb the concept of “loyalty”. The cause of defending the homeland is getting cemented inside their hearts and minds. Therefore, the power “within” each person (Individual) is as important as exactly as the power with the group (environment) in building such behavior.

Conclusion In brief, authority leads people irresistibly, smoothly, spontaneously and without noticing how they get drifted with this authority. And thus, their ability to self-monitor disappears. Adding to this the strong cause and motives, so people

eventually stay sure that they work for a cause (the ends justify the means) and their actions will never be exposed to their conscience court. So people’s attitudes and behaviors are based on two main variables; 1) the individual motives “I” and 2) the effects of environment and context “we”. It may be that we are puppets-puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation. (Milgram, 1974b, p. 568)

REFERENCES: Milgram’s obedience to authority experiments: Origins and early evolution British, Journal of Social Psychology (2011), 50, 140–162-P.P 140-161 Adams, G. B., & Balfour, D. L. (1998). Unmasking bureaucratic evil. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Blass, T. (2004). The man who shocked the world: the life and legacy of Stanley Milgram., New York: Basic Books. Blass, T. The Milgram Paradigm After 35 Years: Some Things We Now Know About Obedience to Authority, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1999, 29, 5, pp. 955-978. V. H. Winston & Son, Inc. Milgram S. Behavioral study of obedience. J. Abnormal Soc. Psychol. 67:371-8, 1963. [Yale University, New Haven, CT] This Week’s Citation Classic MARCH 2, 1981 CC/NUMBER 9 Video Open source, Milgram Experiment on YouTube (www.youtube.com )