Stanley Milgrim's Obedience to Authority Experiment

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The experiment performed by Stanley Milgrim at Yale University was both fascinating and thought provoking. Milgrim’s famous experiment explored “Obedience to authority.” In his experiment Milgrim explained to his students what was going to happen. He told his students that they would be the “teacher” who was going to administer a volunteered “student “a word-pairing test. Milgrim told them for every incorrect answer the “student” gave they would give a shock to the “student”. Each shock would increase in voltage after every incorrect answer. The shocks would be painful but not life threatening, he explained. They were also told an experimenter would be in the room to oversee the results of the experiment. Milgrim lead his students to believe this was an experiment to see the effect of punishment on learning and offered a sizeable $4.50 for participating in the experiment. Many students complied to participate in the experiment. Before the experiment began Milgrim asked the participants how long they thought they could administer shocks to the crying, screaming “student” before they would refuse to shock any more. Many of the participants said they would only go up to maybe 200 or 300 volts before they would stop.

In Milgrim’s experiment Milgrim was really looking at the “obedience to authority” of his participants. He was some friend actors pretend they were getting shocked at an increasing rate and to beg for the “teacher” to stop shocking them. Milgrim was trying to see how far the participants would shock the “students” while an experimenter was in the room telling them to continue shocking. He expected as the students had said that they would stop after 200 or 300 volts before they refused to shock any more.

The results...

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...nts were informed about what they would have to do prior to the experiment. Deception was used but in a way that was vital to the experiment, therefore making it acceptable, and the participants were informed later of the true nature of the experiment. Nobody was hurt or shocked in any way since the “students” were just acting. Migrims famous experiment does not violate the A.P.A’s code.

Milgrim’s experiment is very important to psychology and the understanding of human behavior and obedience. It shows that humans act in ways to please others. Also, it is very difficult to resist the temptation to be obedient to others of greater hierarchical status. Human nature is to be rewarded for obeying the demands of others by greater status and respect. In conclusion Milgrim’s experiment was very fascinating and helped shape psychology’s understanding of obedience in humans.

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