Stanley Milgram's Disobedience

Many religions in today’s society are founded upon obedience. For those people who choose the religious path, they follow the teachings and guidance of a man who speaks to a higher power without question. Even those who have not chosen the religious path, still follow blindly to a higher authority. The human mind unconsciously desires to follow the majority’s demands, because humans have a psychological need to feel accepted by those around them. Two social psychologists, Solomon E. Asch, Stanley Milgram, and an author by the name of Doris Lessing were intrigued by the concept of obedience. Stanley Milgram was curious about the reason humans blindly follow an authority figure. This led Milgram to conduct an experiment regarding this topic. Solomon E. Asch was curious about the social pressure groups placed on an individual and their own beliefs and opinions. Doris Lessing focused her interest on the Western culture’s obedience. …show more content…
The students were payed actors and the teachers were the subjects, both were in separate rooms and could not see the other. Milgram told the teachers that the students were hooked up to a machine that would send an electric shock to the student when they gave a wrong answer. Milgram also informed the teachers that the experiment was looking at the relationship between pain and learning. In front of the teacher sat a box that had written voltages from 14 to 450. The teacher was assigned to read the student a list of words, and the student was to repeat the first word read to them. If the student got the word wrong, hesitated, or did not give an answer, it was the signal for the teacher to shock the student. After every shock they voltage would increase on the next wrong, hesitant, or silent