Even as people call themselves individuals and claim to do as they please, it is in their encoding to follow a simple command from a superior even if it objects their own judgement. In a simple experiment, such as that performed by Stanley Milgram, one command can make or break your own sense of self. Even if the command isn't compulsory, as seen by the marines in the movie A Few Good Men, orders can be extremely hard not to follow. A Few Good Men depicts the court case of two marines, Private First Class Louden Downey and Lance Corporal Harold W. Dawson, who had been ordered to perform a "Code Red" on a fellow marine, Private First Class William T. Santiago. Stanley Miligram, a 1970's psychologist who wanted to test obedience in humans, believed that authority was the key to obedience. To test his theory he developed an experiment that involved a "Teacher", a volunteer who knew nothing of the true experiment, asking questions to a "learner", an actor, and if the actor got the question wrong he would be shocked. As long as the experimenter asked them to continue most shocked the learner to the full extent of 450 volts. As Dawson, and Downey knew what they were doing would hurt Santiago, the teachers in Miligram's experiment knew they were hurting the learner, yet they all continued. How far can you go until a command goes to far? When does a command become too much to follow? The teachers in the Milgram's experiment, were not forced to continue, the experimenter did not take their hand and force it down, he simply told them to continue on. Seeing the experimenter as an authority figure, the teacher continued. It is bred into our minds to follow anyone who seems to have an authority about him, whether it is because we seem t... ... middle of paper ... ... full extent of the board (Miligram, 2). At a young age children learn to do whatever an adult tells them to do. As adults, they learn that they must do whatever anyone of a higher authority tells them to do. It is taught to them from the start to listen, and to obey. Maybe not to the extent that we are seeing in Miligram's experiment or in A Few Good Men, but it is there. It is almost an impulse to obey whatever we are told no matter the consequences. Works Cited Encia, Georgio. "Milgram's Experiment on Obedience to Authority." Milgram's Experiment on Obedience to Authority. University of California, 15 Nov. 2004. Web. 04 Dec. 2013. A Few Good Men. Dir. Rob Reiner. Prod. Rob Reiner, David Brown, and Andrew Scheinman. By Aaron Sorkin. Perf. Columbia Pictures, 1992. DVD. Stanley, Milgram. "Behavioral Study of Obedience" Wikipedia: Web. 12 Dec. 2013.
In "The Perils of Obedience," Stanley Milgram conducted a study that tests the conflict between obedience to authority and one's own conscience. Through the experiments, Milgram discovered that the majority of people would go against their own decisions of right and wrong to appease the requests of an authority figure. The study was set up as a "blind experiment" to capture if and when a person will stop inflicting pain on another as they are explicitly commanded to continue. The participants of this experiment included two willing individuals: a teacher and a learner. The teacher is the real subject and the learner is merely an actor.
In this article “The Pearls of Obedience”, Stanley Milgram asserts that obedience to authority is a common response for many people in today’s society, often diminishing an individuals beliefs or ideals. Stanley Milgram designs an experiment to understand how strong a person’s tendency to obey authority is, even though it is amoral or destructive. Stanley Milgram bases his experiment on three people: a learner, teacher, and experimenter. The experimenter is simply an overseer of the experiment, and is concerned with the outcome of punishing the learner. The teacher, who is the subject of the experiment, is made to believe the electrical shocks are real; he is responsible for obeying the experimenter and punishing the learner for incorrect answers by electrocuting him from an electric shock panel that increases from 15 to 450 volts.
The motion picture A Few Good Men challenges the question of why Marines obey their superiors’ orders without hesitation. The film illustrates a story about two Marines, Lance Corporal Harold W. Dawson and Private First Class Louden Downey charged for the murder of Private First Class William T. Santiago. Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, who is known to be lackadaisical and originally considers offering a plea bargain in order to curtail Dawson’s and Downey’s sentence, finds himself fighting for the freedom of the Marines; their argument: they simply followed the orders given for a “Code Red”. The question of why people follow any order given has attracted much speculation from the world of psychology. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, conducted an experiment in which randomly selected students were asked to deliver “shocks” to an unknown subject when he or she answered a question wrong. In his article, “The Perils of Obedience”, Milgram concludes anyone will follow an order with the proviso that it is given by an authoritative figure. Two more psychologists that have been attracted to the question of obedience are Herbert C. Kelman, a professor at Harvard University, and V. Lee Hamilton, a professor at the University of Maryland. In their piece, Kelman and Hamilton discuss the possibilities of why the soldiers of Charlie Company slaughtered innocent old men, women, and children. The Marines from the film obeyed the ordered “Code Red” because of how they were trained, the circumstances that were presented in Guantanamo Bay, and they were simply performing their job.
A former Yale psychologist, Stanley Milgram, administered an experiment to test the obedience of "ordinary" people as explained in his article, "The Perils of Obedience". An unexpected outcome came from this experiment by watching the teacher administer shocks to the learner for not remembering sets of words. By executing greater shocks for every wrong answer created tremendous stress and a low comfort levels within the "teacher", the one being observed unknowingly, uncomfortable and feel the need to stop. However, with Milgram having the experimenter insisting that they must continue for the experiments purpose, many continued to shock the learner with much higher voltages.The participants were unaware of many objects of the experiment until
... More people followed their direct orders and continued shocking the learners to the very highest voltage. Stanley Milgram’s experiment shows societies that more people abide by the rules of an authority figure under any circumstances rather than follow their own natural instincts. With the use of his well-organized article that appeals to the general public, direct quotes and real world examples, Milgram’s idea is very well-supported. The results of the experiment were in Milgram’s favor and show that people are obedient to authority figures.
In “ Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments On Obedience” by Diana Baumrind, and in “Obedience” by Ian Parker, the writers claim that Milgram’s Obedience is ethically wrong and work of evil because of the potential harm that the subjects of the experiment had. While Baumrind’s article focused only on the Subjects of the experiment, Parker’s article talked about both immediate and long term response to experiment along with the reaction of both the general public and Milgram’s colleagues, he also talks about the effect of the experiment on Milgram himself. Both articles discuss has similar points, they also uses Milgram’s words against him and while Baumrind attacks Milgram, Parker shows the reader that experiment
Obedience to authority and willingness to obey an authority against one’s morals has been a topic of debate for decades. Stanley Milgrim, a Yale psychologist, conducted a study in which his subjects were commanded by a person in authority to initiate lethal shocks to a learner; his experiment is discussed in detail in the article “The Perils of Obedience” (Milgrim 77). Milgrim’s studies are said to be the most “influential and controversial studies of modern psychology” (Levine).While the leaner did not actually receive fatal shocks, an actor pretended to be in extreme pain, and 60 percent of the subjects were fully obedient, despite evidence displaying they believed what they were doing was harming another human being (Milgrim 80). Likewise, in Dr. Zimbardo, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, conducted an experiment, explained in his article “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” in which ten guards were required to keep the prisoners from
The experiment was to see if people would follow the orders of an authority figure, even if the orders that were given proved to cause pain to the person taking the test. In the “Milgram Experiment” by Saul McLeod, he goes into detail about six variations that changed the percentage of obedience from the test subject, for example, one variable was that the experiment was moved to set of run down offices rather than at Yale University. Variables like these changed the results dramatically. In four of these variations, the obedience percentage was under 50 percent (588). This is great evidence that it is the situation that changes the actions of the individual, not he or she’s morals.
Milgram answers the question of why this problem occurred in our pasts, for example during the Holocaust, and still occurs within ourselves. The experiment unfortunately illustrates that it is easy to ignore responsibility when one is only a link in a chain of action in a multifaceted society. People feel is their duty or their job to obey an authority figure without realizing that nobody can make another individual do something they feel is not right.
Every participant went through three hundred volts before they stopped and refused to go any further (McLeod, 2007). This study demonstrates that obedience is a part of who we are. Milgram concludes that there are two states of behavior. The first is autonomous behavior where the individual takes responsibility and the other is agentic state responsibility is on the person giving the orders (McLeod, 2007). People who are ordinary are capable of harming other individuals if a person of authority tells them to. For a person to be obedient they must believe the person giving the orders is qualified and will take responsibility. A person is less likely to harm another person if the authoritative person is not going to take responsibility. This was proven in Milgram’s study because when he told individuals they had to take responsibility they did not want to continue. The Milgram study has influenced other psychologist to explore what makes a person follow orders (Cherry, 2012). The other experiments that Milgram conducted showed that rebellious people are not as obedient. There were different environments demonstrated among the different studies that Milgram used and even though the environment changed the situation stayed the
Milgram’s studies on obedience to authority as well as obedience under extreme stress, paved a way to understanding the human psyche and how we handle choices we do not understand. As human beings we are given from a very young age a set of morals and standards we choose to live by. We see our parent’s successes and failures and we base the choices we make on what made them happy, and what will in the long run, bring us the same joy. From the beginning of the experiment you can see the pressure he starts everyone under. Where he chooses to begin his testing tells you a lot about what he was wanting them all to feel. A very rundown, dark, empty building with prison cell like rooms with sparse walls. Pipes showing and most likely a musty smell
In finding that people are not naturally aggressive. Milgram now alters the experiment to find out why do people act the way they do. He compiled the experiment to answer, why do people obey authority, even when the actions are against their own morals.
Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience are the focus of Theodore Dalrymple and Ian Parker. Theodore Dalrymple is a British physician that composed his views of the Milgram experiment with “Just Do What the Pilot Tells You” in the New Statesman in July 1999 (254). He distinguishes between blind obedience and blind disobedience stating that an extreme of either is not good, and that a healthy balance between the two is needed. On the other hand, Ian Parker is a British writer who wrote “Obedience” for an issue of Granta in the fall of 2000. He discusses the location of the experiment as a major factor and how the experiment progresses to prevent more outcomes. Dalrymple uses real-life events to convey his argument while Parker exemplifies logic from professors to state his point.
More specifically, the movie A Few Good Men depicts the results of blindly obeying orders. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, also explores obedience to authority in his essay “ The Perils of Obedience”. On the other hand, Erich Fromm, a psychoanalyst and philosopher, focused on disobedience to authority in his essay “ Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem.” Milgram wrote about how people were shockingly obedient to authority when they thought they were harming someone else while Fromm dissected both: why people are so prone to obey and how disobedience from authoritative figures can bring beneficial changes for society. Obeying commands, even when they go against our morals, is human nature; Disobeying commands, however, is challenging to do no matter what the situation is.
Stanley Milgram is well known for his work with obedience to authority. His work, “The Perils of Obedience,” studied whether average individuals would obey an authority figure, telling them to do something that harms another individual.