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Nature of authority in power
The nature of authority
Society and individual
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Stanley Milgram was a social psychologist, studying various aspects of society. Milgram focused on many important social issues, one of them was obedience. Perhaps his most famous experiment, Milgram tested the extent of authoritative power and how obediences can influence a person’s action . To test his theory on obedience, Milgram had asked a subject, known as the teacher, to shock a “learner” if they fail to remember a set of phrases. The shock was increased every time the learner made an error. Milgram wanted to see how far the teacher would push forward with the experiment. The results of the experiment were chilling. Milgram learned that people are willing to listen to an authority figure’s demand, even if the demands are horrendous. …show more content…
Atrocities committed today are often the result of mob mentality. We see numerous events of racial discrimination in the U.S. police force, often resulting in unjustified violence against the African American communities. These racial violence echoes the message that Milgram had warn us about. A clear example of this is the Rodney King beating in 1991. In this incident police officers pursued Rodney King in a high speed chase. After the police officers arrested Rodney King, 4 members of the police unit proceed to beat King for 5 minutes, who is unarmed and cuffed at the time. Meanwhile the other police officers watched as the beating continued. The beating resulted in Rodney King receiving a brain damage, a fractured skull, and various broken bones. This unlawful punishment of Rodney King is a testament to Milgram’s statements. The officers who watch the beating did not attempt to stop it, knowing that it was unjustified. Rather than come to sense with morality, the police officers submitted to the situation. The police officers on standby, didn’t want to receive any sort of rejection if they had spoken out against the beating. This incident shows a combination of mob mentality and weak morals can erupt into senseless violence. It is not surprising to see this event occurring, Milgrim has warned us in the
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.
Upon analyzing his experiment, Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, concludes that people will drive to great lengths to obey orders given by a higher authority. The experiment, which included ordinary people delivering “shocks” to an unknown subject, has raised many questions in the psychological world. Diana Baumrind, a psychologist at the University of California and one of Milgram’s colleagues, attacks Milgram’s ethics after he completes his experiment in her review. She deems Milgram as being unethical towards the subjects he uses for testing and claims that his experiment is irrelevant to obedience. In contrast, Ian Parker, a writer for New Yorker and Human Sciences, asserts Milgram’s experiments hold validity in the psychological world. While Baumrind focuses on Milgram’s ethics, Parker concentrates more on the reactions, both immediate and long-term, to his experiments.
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.
The beating of Rodney King from the Los Angeles Police Department on March 3, 1991 and the Los Angeles riots resulting from the verdict of the police officers on April 29 through May 5, 1992 are events that will never be forgotten. They both evolve around one incident, but there are two sides of ethical deviance: the LAPD and the citizens involved in the L.A. riots. The incident on March 3, 1991 is an event, which the public across the nation has never witnessed. If it weren’t for the random videotaping of the beating that night, society would never know what truly happened to Rodney King. What was even more disturbing is the mentality the LAPD displayed to the public and the details of how this mentality of policing led up to this particular incident. This type of ethical deviance is something the public has not seen since the civil rights era. Little did Chief Gates, the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, and the LAPD know what the consequences of their actions would lead to. Moving forward in time to the verdict of those police officers being acquitted of the charges, the public sentiment spiraled into an outrage. The disbelief and shock of the citizens of Los Angeles sparked a mammoth rioting that lasted for six days. The riots led to 53 deaths and the destruction of many building. This is a true but disturbing story uncovering the ethical deviance from the LAPD and the L.A. riots. The two perspectives are from the Rodney King incident are the LAPD and the L.A. riots.
...e maximum shock level dropped significantly. The more official the experimenter looked, the more people would reach the maximum shock level. Stanley Milgram’s findings were groundbreaking. He found that humans will comply and obey ones orders than previously thought. His experiment has become one of the more well known and influential social psychology experiments completed.
Obedience is the requirement of all mutual living and is the basic element of the structure of social life. Conservative philosophers argue that society is threatened by disobedience, while humanists stress the priority of the individuals' conscience. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, designed an experiment that forced participants to either violate their conscience by obeying the immoral demands of an authority figure or to refuse those demands. Milgram's study, reported in "The Perils of Obedience" suggested that under a special set of circumstances the obedience we naturally show authority figures can transform us into agents of terror or monsters towards humanity.
This incident would have produced nothing more than another report for resisting arrest had a bystander, George Holliday, not videotaped the altercation. Holliday then released the footage to the media. LAPD Officers Lawrence Powell, Stacey Koon, Timothy Wind and Theodore Brisino were indicted and charged with assaulting King. Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg ordered a change of venue to suburban Simi Valley, which is a predominantly white suburb of Los Angeles. All officers were subsequently acquitted by a jury comprised of 10 whites, one Hispanic and one Asian, and the African American community responded in a manner far worse than the Watts Riots of 1965. ?While the King beating was tragic, it was just the trigger that released the rage of a community in economic strife and a police department in serious dec...
The day of March 3rd, Rodney King sped away from the police officers while intoxicated. The day of March 3rd, Rodney King was roughly taken from his vehicle.The day of March 3rd, Rodney King was brutally bashed and beaten close to sixty times by Los Angeles, California police officers (Boyd 1). The Rodney King Legacy Lives states, “The sickening tape, shot by a neighborhood resident, clearly shows the man on the ground offering no resistance as the cops pummeled him reportedly fifty-six times in the body and face,” (Carter 2). From the tape, the member’s of the jury had the opportunity to see, for themselves, the acts of brutality that took place. Some of the damages caused “skull fractures, nerve damage, a crushed cheekbone, a broken ankle and possible brain damage” (Brady 1).With this information, the members ...
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.
Dalrymple states that he obeyed his superior because she was more knowledgeable over her job (256). The Milgram experiment demonstrates how ordinary people act towards authority in certain situations. Dalrymple accurately utilizes that point by describing when a boy is turned in for trying to steal a car and then the parents proceed to yell at the guards. The guards began to stop reporting kids because they wanted to avoid the conflict all together (257). Parker agrees with Dalrymple by explicating that the experimenter alludes to conflict when the teacher wants to discontinue the experiment, but stumbles to rebel when dictated to continue (238). Parker’s solution is to offer a button for the teachers to press when they are no longer able to continue the experiment (238).
middle of paper ... ... Works Cited Baumrind, Diana. A. A “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience.” From. Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum.
...te police officers of charges stemming from the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King. As a result of this verdict, thousands of citizens rioted for six days. Mass amounts of looting, murder, arson and assault took place.” Riots are one of the most common forms of mob mentality and are shown in this book several times.
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.
Police brutality is an act that often goes unnoticed by the vast majority of white Americans. This is the intentional use of “excessive force by an authority figure, which oftentimes ends with bruises, broken bones, bloodshed, and sometimes even death” (Harmon). While law-abiding citizens worry about protecting themselves from criminals, it has now been revealed that they must also keep an eye on those who are supposed to protect and serve.