Stanley Milgram's View Of The Nature Of Obedience

Improved Essays
The goal of this paper is to review and analyze the article written by Stanley Milgram in 1963. This experiment was considered to be one of the most acknowledged research in the history of social psychology that revealed the unpredicted side of human nature. The author described the tendencies of obedience as inevitable part of our lives, particularly since we live in the complex systems of society where human interaction is unavoidable. He illustrated that this specific tendencies of human behavior was extremely relevant at this specific time in history, during which millions of innocent lives had systematically been lost through wars and fascist movements. It is clearly evident that the author became deeply curious about the nature of “obedience”

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Milligram’s experiment was based on his interest in researching who and how would someone obey authority figures. He was driven by the thought that maybe there is something about human nature that led people to obey. Having studied previously both Milgram and Zimbardo’s obedience studies, it was easier for me to analyze and apply it to the purpose of the book. The authors point out that although general results are important, there was not much thought put into the difference among the individuals in the experiments. Milgram focused on the 65% of subjects who obeyed the authority, but was less interested on why the 35% of the subjects…

    • 1341 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Question 1 The Milgram study was done with the objection of finding out whether obedience for from an authoritative figure was a common occurrence, for example, the killing of Jews by Nazis. Therefore, how long were subjects willing to inflict pin on another person when asked to, despite knowing the seriousness of the injuries. From the experiment, the experimenter established routine through the use of the predefined prods such as ‘please go on and please continue (Myers & Twenge, 2017).’ That way the subject would know what to do when they would hear these words.…

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Milgram proposed that people operate on two levels. First, they operate as autonomous individuals, where they act according to their own values and beliefs. Second, they act on an agentic level where they see themselves as agents, acting on behalf of somebody else and not responsible for their own actions. He asserted that it is possible to move from an autonomous state into an agentic state; this is referred to as an agentic shift (Milgram, 1963). A consequence of this shift is that an individual no longer feels responsible for their actions.…

    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the military, people follow orders from superiors on a daily basis, even when the orders are not morally sound. The article “The Perils of Obedience” written by Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist and infamous for his obedience experiment, focuses on the frequent human nature to submit to an authoritative figure. Milgram links his results to the reason why some Nazis carried out such ruthless acts: obedience overrules ethics in most cases (Milgram 89). Relatedly, Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton composed the article “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience” to attempt to rationalize the brutalities committed by U.S. sodiers in the village of Son My. In their article, they include that authorization, routinization, and dehumanization were…

    • 1055 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The experiment in “The Perils of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram, Yale psychologist, has triggered many responses to the question of an individual’s willingness to obey and the credibility of the experiment he performed. Ian Parker, a regular writer for the New Yorker and common voice in other political/scientific compositions, has come to the table with his opinion and outside sources to discuss the facts of Milgram’s experiment and its consequences in his essay, “Obedience.” Milgram claims through his experiment on obedience we can logically determine an idea of the thought processes of the Nazis (Milgriam 89). This experiment arrived at the conclusion that people are surprisingly obedient to a legitimate authority figure even when the orders…

    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Based on Milgram’s experiment he uncovered that “For many people, obedience is a deeply ingrained behavior tendency, indeed a potent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct” (691). Most Germans carried out the…

    • 1105 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 1962, Stanley Milgram surprised the world with his study on obedience. To test his theory he invented an electronic box that would become a window into human cruelty. In ascending order, a row of buttons marked the amount of voltage one person would inflict upon another. Milgram’s original motive for the experiment was to understand the unthinkable: How could the German people permit the extermination of the Jews? Stanley Milgram wanted to understand the necessary conditions in which a person would obey an authority who commanded actions that went against conscience.…

    • 1011 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Perils Of Obedience

    • 1336 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The movie A Few Good Men provides a perspective with which to view the issues of the defense of obedience to authority when following instructions from superiors. Stanley Milgram, author of “The Perils of Obedience,” and Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton, authors of “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience,” would likely argue that numerous factors other than intentional sadistic urges could cause a person to unnecessarily inflict violence on another human being. Both articles use psychological methods to examine the reasons a person would knowingly inflict pain on another human. Milgram’s article begins by explaining the dilemma of submission to authority and continues to describe his well-known experiment in its entirety (78-79).…

    • 1336 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the article "The Perils of Obedience” Stanley Milgram describes obedience as a basic element in the structure of social life and the effects it has on all communal living(Milgram 693). What if one is asked to be obedient to something that doesn’t aline with their personal morals? Milgram wanted to run an experiment to find this out. He simply wanted to know if the Nazis were acting out in pure evil or just simply following direct orders by a person who, they thought, was placed in a position of authority. In order to do this, he sets out to test how a normal person reacts when given violent orders by a person, who they believe are in a place of authority.…

    • 2072 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority is one of the best known studies in social psychology. It was repeated several times in different variations. These replications extended our knowledge about the phenomenon of complying to authorities’ orders. One of them was the experiment conducted by Hofling et al. This essay will outline the similarities and differences between these two studies.…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Milgram Experiment Introduction Many people question whether the Milgram experiment was ethical or not, and whether the experiment should had been allowed at all. But like most significant psychological discoveries, sometimes ethics could’ve been overseen in order to obtain great data. Because of Milgram experiment, psychologists today have a better understanding of group dynamics. Milgram’s experiment enabled better understanding of human obedience to an authority figure. Ethics that might have been violated throughout the process of Milgram’s study can be justified in the experiment itself.…

    • 796 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For this assignment, I will reflect on the following three articles, “The Study of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram ( ), “The Surprising Power of Neighborly Advice” by Daniel Gilbert ( ), and “Beyond the Banality of Evil: Three Different Dynamics of an Interactionist Social Psychology of Tyranny” by SA Haslam and S. Reicher ( ). I will first reflect on thoughts that were triggered in relation to my own personal life. Then, I will discuss how I see a particular article fitting into the field of Social Psychology. And finally, I will reflect on how I will integrate my new insight into my work as a developing psychologist.…

    • 858 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    She discusses how the experiment tarnished the subject’s self image and the ability to trust authority later on in life. In the Parker article, “Obedience,” Parker believed that Milgram’s experiment was the most celebrated experiment in the history of social psychology…

    • 982 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ethical guidelines are crucial in research to minimise unnecessary physical or psychological harm to participants in an experiment. Before ethical guidelines existed in research, several experiments were not conducted ethically. In 1963, American psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted Milgram’s Study of Obedience investigating participants' obedience towards authority. The study demonstrated multiple ethical issues which proved the importance of ethics in research. This report will address the ethical principles that Milgram's study covered poorly and how they could be modified to improve the study.…

    • 1040 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Following the horrific events of the German Holocaust, psychologists and psychiatrists have been attempting to answer questions on obedience. At the heart of the debate is why some humans naturally are obedient to authority, and why others have a tendency to be disobedient. Among the many people researching this topic are Erich Fromm and Theodore Dalrymple. Fromm’s work suggests that Freudian ideology shapes tendencies of obedience. Dalrymple claims that experiences in childhood outline impulses to obey.…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays