In the midst of an emerging field in Psychology during the 60’s, Stanley Milgram left his mark on Social Psychology. His fascination in understanding how obedience to authority can clash with innate human morals compelled him to begin a study to test the danger of these conflicting forces. This fascination sprouted from the genocide of millions of innocent men, women and children brought upon the Germans under the reign of Adolf Hitler during World War II. During the Nuremberg War Criminal trials, many of the Nazis justified their wrongdoings by admitting they were merely following orders. Milgram recruited his participants through a newspaper ad, containing 40 males, with ages ranging from 20-50. the experiment was rigged so that the volunteers
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That was just the result to one experiment, Milgram had 18 other experiment done just altering it around to see if the results would change.. Milgram also states that obedience has to do with how a person was brought up and can be affected by family, school and our workplace. Milgram came up with two theories that associates with how a person behaves in a social situation. The first one being autonomous state which is when the person takes action of their own actions. Then there’s agentic state which is when someone allows others to order them to do something and puts the responsibility of the outcome to the person who gave them the other, in other words blaming someone else for their own actions.For agentic state a person has to believe two things: that the person giving the order will accept the responsibility and outcome for their action, and that the authority giving the orders is perceived that they are fit to direct orders if they are seen as legitimate. When the volunteer was told they would be responsible for their own actions most of them didn’t obey but when they were told that the experimenter would be hold accountable they would continue. That was just the result to one experiment, Milgram had 18 other experiment done just altering it around to see if the results would change. When the uniform of the experimenter changed to casual formal clothes the obedience level dropped 20%. When they changed location from a Yale University to a run down office the obedience dropped 47.5% meaning that environment plays a part of level of obedience. 10% dropped when there was two teachers rather that just one. Also when the experimenter wasn’t close by it dropped by
That was just the result to one experiment, Milgram had 18 other experiment done just altering it around to see if the results would change.. Milgram also states that obedience has to do with how a person was brought up and can be affected by family, school and our workplace. Milgram came up with two theories that associates with how a person behaves in a social situation. The first one being autonomous state which is when the person takes action of their own actions. Then there’s agentic state which is when someone allows others to order them to do something and puts the responsibility of the outcome to the person who gave them the other, in other words blaming someone else for their own actions.For agentic state a person has to believe two things: that the person giving the order will accept the responsibility and outcome for their action, and that the authority giving the orders is perceived that they are fit to direct orders if they are seen as legitimate. When the volunteer was told they would be responsible for their own actions most of them didn’t obey but when they were told that the experimenter would be hold accountable they would continue. That was just the result to one experiment, Milgram had 18 other experiment done just altering it around to see if the results would change. When the uniform of the experimenter changed to casual formal clothes the obedience level dropped 20%. When they changed location from a Yale University to a run down office the obedience dropped 47.5% meaning that environment plays a part of level of obedience. 10% dropped when there was two teachers rather that just one. Also when the experimenter wasn’t close by it dropped by