Milgram's Theory Of Obedience Summary

Jerry M. Burger is a Psychology professor for Santa Clara University. Burger replicated Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies from the 1960’s and 1970s. In Milgram’s study, Milgram wanted to test “the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience” (Saul McLeod, 2007). He conducted this experiment by having an authority figure, a “learner”, and 40 participants who went through the experiment at different times. The participant was supposed to ask the learner a series of questions for the learner (an actor) to answer. The learner was tied down to an electric chair in the room next door, and the participant was told by the experimenter (who was also an actor) to give the learner a shock for every answer the learner got wrong. The voltage ranged from 15 to 450 volts, and for …show more content…
Both of these experiments’ results support the Agency theory. According to the second article written by Saul McLeod, the “Agency theory says that people will obey an authority when they believe that the authority will take responsibility for the consequences of their actions” (McLeod). Though I figured that since it seemed like the learner was getting tortured, majority of the participants would stop after they heard the learner screaming in agony saying their heart was in a lot of pain. Both Milgram and Burger proved that no matter the year in time, humans would always feel a bond and trust towards authority figures. Regardless of the behavior the authority figure is encouraging, if the participant is aware they are not responsible and are consistently assured that no harm is being done, they will go as far as they are willing to go to obey the authority figure. Though both Milgram and Burger assumed that if there is another person in the room, authority figure or not, showing reluctance to the behavior being encouraged, that participant will be more likely to express their true feelings and go with the