The Characteristics Of Milgram's Experiment On Obedience To Authority

Have you ever felt the need to be a part of a group to be popular? But realized you don’t meet their standards. In society there comes a point when people are placed in certain situations where they have to conform and comply, in order to feel accepted. Even though, many people have different views, opinions and ideas compliance and conformity are always the two main key factors in an individual’s performance. Social psychologists conducted many experiments to understand compliance and conformity on individuals. I will be discussing the characteristics of conformity and compliance based studies and experiments by social psychologist Dillard, Milgram and Asch.

For many years people have been conforming to their life activities that have effects

In Milgram’s study, he observe an individual 's decision to inflict harm to another person in the name of science. Random people are chosen to attend the experiment in order to analyze their behavior to comply under an authority figure. The experiment had two actors and one subject. The subject was chosen to be the teacher in order to see their potential to proceed to such extremities. The “teacher” (subject) had instructions to give electric shocks to the “learner” (actor) with an increment in voltage for every wrong answer. The idea was for the teacher to realize that their actions were injuring the learner and cease the experiment. When they felt guilty to continue the “professor” (actor) would say, “The experiment requires that you continue” (Encina) and so they proceeded. More than half continued the experiment. Toward the end each subject was informed that no one was hurt during the experiment. Thus, concluding Milgram’s experiment a

Influenced by Asch experiment, Mori “developed a new technique that allows researchers to study a wide range of social conformity phenomena without using confederates” (Mori 392). In this new technique groups of men and women were tested. Unlike in the Asch experiment where only men were being tested (Mori 392). In the Mori experiment, the confederate group was eliminated and instead used polarized glasses to distinguish the difference between slides on the presentation. The Mori experiment resulted in a success displaying that “the minority women erred more because they conformed to the majority” (Mori 305).

Throughout the 1900’s, many experiment have been created and tested on individuals to measure their compliance and conformity. Social psychologist Dillard, Milgram and Asch have set great a foundation for future psychologist to do more research about compliance or conformity. One example, is the Mori experiment in which the foundation was based on the Asch experiment. All of these experiments show the capacity and performance of an individual 's compliance and