This experiment is very interesting as in reminded a lot of a very famous experiment that was conducted back in 1963, The Milgram’s Obedience Experiment. According to De Vos (2009), Stanley Milgram studied the willingness of an individual to obey instructions from an authoritative figure despite the fact that they might be acts that would conflict with a person’s consciousness. It was because of the horror during the Nazi era which was what promoted him to carry on the experiment. This is how I gained interest in this particular experiment, as I was curious in knowing whether those kinds of behaviors can still be elicited or not in today’s world.
Independent variable
1. The presence of an authoritative figure or a non-authoritative figure.
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The actions influenced by an observer might not be delegate of the behavior when the observer is not present (The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2000). On the other hand, nonreactive measure is said to be the study whereby an individual “is not aware of being checked and there is almost no harm that the act of measurement itself will serve as a change of force or would bring out the role-playing that is confused in the data (Fritsche & Linneweber, 2004). Based on these two definitions, the dependant variable in this experiment is definitely recorded using the non-reactive measures. Because the participants were thanked first right after they completed their questionnaire and surveys, and then only they were asked to deliver the envelope. By doing this, most participants would have just thought of it as a request as they would be with the idea that the experiment is over the moment they completed their questionnaires and was thanked for it, which leaves no room for the observer to influence the participants …show more content…
According to Kirk(1995) the cooperative-participant effect means participants who just like getting into the good books of the experimenter by pleasing them and doing things accordingly, whereas participant with evaluation apprehension are only concern about themselves. As long as they can get a positive evaluation from the experimenter, they are happy. The reason on why I think these two factors affected the experiment is because extra credits were given to the participants who volunteered to partake in the experiment by their psychology professors. In order to get better grades, the participants would have probably tried to impress the experimenter and by doing things
This gives proof to the belief that many people obey authority to show they are doing a good job, and perceived as loyal by the experimenter or society, which ever the case may be. One theory used to explain this experiment, is one of hidden aggression. According to this concept, people suppress aggressive behavior, and the experiment allows them to express this anger. Therefore when an individual is placed in a situation where he has control over another individual, whom he is able to punish repeatedly, all demented and hidden anger will be revealed.
...’s obedience level is affected by the location and surroundings of the experiment; they also hold a mutual understanding on the question of ethics. Yet, there is a larger question. Could these points indicate that humans are not fully in control of their actions?
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
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
In a series of experiments conducted from 1960 to 1963, American psychologist Stanley Milgram, sought to examine the relationship between obedience and authority in order to understand how Nazi doctors were able to carry out experiments on prisoners during WWII. While there are several theories about Milgram’s results, philosopher Ruwen Ogien uses the experiment as grounds for criticizing virtue ethics as a moral theory. In chapter 9 of Human Kindness and The Smell of Warm Croissant, Ogien claims that “what determines behavior is not character but other factors tied to situation” (Ogien 120). The purpose of this essay is not to interpret the results of the Milgram experiments. Instead this essay serves to argue why I am not persuaded by Ogien’s
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.
If a study is confounded, the researcher is not absolutely certain that changes in the dependent variable were caused by the manipulation of the independent variable, or some other uncontrolled variable. In a non-equivalent control group post-test only design, any differences observed between the two classes may be due to the non-equivalence of the groups and not to the injection of quizzes. No pre-test measures were given to establish equivalence.
The first thing I found to be extremely fascinating was the Milgram Study. This study in particular explains in dept how an average person will obey to an authority figure even though the orders could be terrible. I think it’s a fascinating study because typically individuals will not complete an order if it makes them feel uncomfortable. However, once you place someone with higher power they forget about the discomfort and instantly obey to the orders given to them. This topic is important in psychology because it shows the relationship of obedience. It goes to show the factors that have to be put in place for a person to obey to someone else’s orders. This helps psychologist understand how a person with higher power can ultimately control the decisions of a person with lower power.
The teachers would initiate a “shock” to the student every time they got an answer wrong, but the teachers were unaware that the shock was fake. As the experiment continued, the shocks became more severe, and the students would plead for the teacher to stop since they were in pain. Despite the fact, that the participants continuously asked the authoritative experimenter if they could stop, “...relatively few people [had] the resources needed to resist authority” (Cherry 5). The participants feared questioning the effectiveness of the experiment, or restraining from continuing in fear of losing their job, going to jail, or getting reprimanded by Yale. A majority of the participants were intimidated by the experimenter, hence why they continued to shock the students, even though they knew morally, it was incorrect what they were doing. This experiment concluded, “...situational variables have a stronger sway than personality factors in determining obedience...” (5). One's decisions are based on the situation they are facing. If someone is under pressure, they will resort to illogical decision making. There thoughts could potentially be altered due to fear, or hostility. In conclusion, the rash, incohesive state of mind, provoked by fear will eventually lead to the rise of
The Asch and Milgram’s experiment were not unethical in their methods of not informing the participant of the details surrounding the experiment and the unwarranted stress; their experiment portrayed the circumstances of real life situation surrounding the issues of obedience to authority and social influence. In life, we are not given the courtesy of knowledge when we are being manipulated or influenced to act or think a certain way, let us be honest here because if we did know people were watching and judging us most of us would do exactly as society sees moral, while that may sound good in ensuring that we always do the right thing that would not be true to the ways of our reality. Therefore, by not telling the participants the detail of the experiment and inflicting unwarranted stress Asch and Milgram’s were
It is human nature to respect and obey elders or authoritative figures, even when it may result in harm to oneself or others. Stanley Milgram, an American social psychologist, conducted an experiment to test the reasoning behind a person’s obedience. He uses this experiment in hope to gain a better understanding behind the reason Hitler was so successful in manipulating the Germans along with why their obedience continued on such extreme levels. Milgram conducts a strategy similar to Hitler’s in attempt to test ones obedience. Diana Baumrind, a clinical and developmental psychologist, disagreed with Milgram’s experiment in her article, ”Some Thoughts on Ethics of Research: After Reading Milgram’s “Behavioral Study of obedience”, Baumrind explains
Summary of the Experiment In Stanley Milgram’s ‘The Perils of Obedience’, Milgram conducted experiments with the objective of knowing “how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist" (Milgram 317). In the experiments, two participants would go into a warehouse where the experiments were being conducted and inside the warehouse, the subjects would be marked as either a teacher or a learner. A learner would be hooked up to a kind of electric chair and would be expected to do as he is being told by the teacher and do it right because whenever the learner said the wrong word, the intensity of the electric shocks increased. Similar procedure was undertaken on the teacher and the results of the experiments showed conclusively that a large number of people would go against their personal conscience in obedience to authority (Milgram 848).... ...
n hypothesis of the experiment is that the group containing four members will perform better than the group containing two members. This is the foundation from which we have conducted our experiment.
Evaluation of Milgram's Obedience Study. Stanley Milgram was from a Jewish background and conducted the experiment to see how people can obey an apparent authority figure. e.g. Germans in World War II. He advertised for participants in a newspaper offering a payment of $4.50. Volunteers were told that the experiment looking at the effects of punishment on learning.