Summary and critique of Stanley Milgram

The taste on behavioural Study of Obedience was conducted by Stanley Milgram in July 1961. It was barely three months after Adolf Eichmann had been tried over the whitlow activities committed during the Nazi war. The research was designed to address the wonders about the peoples who were the masterminds of the infamous Nazi torturing trial by ordeal that were responsible for the deaths of millions of the innocent people. It was intended to find out the people who would prefer to be submissive to the potential at the expense of human life.The try out also sought to measure the automaticness of individuals to succeed an dictum conformation who instructs them to do certain affairs that are against their someoneal conscience. The question that the researchers were asking was, Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the final solution were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices? The hypothesis was that thither was likelihood that that during th e Nazi war it magnate have been that Adolf Eichmann and his accomplices were just being submissive to the orders from higher authority (against their will) to murder the innocent people.The research question was very instrumental in helping to unveil how one can alter some other persons behavior, beliefs and mind-set. Before giving the results of the experiment the researcher predicted that just now a negligible number of the participants would obey the orders and persist on to administer maximum ball over. The swerve was 0 3%. That meant that out of atomic number 6 participants only 3 would administer the 450 volt disaster.MethodThe people who participate in the experiment (subjects) were drawn from diametrical social status background within New Haven area. They comprised people from a wide range occupation with characteristic characters include clerical officers, teachers, salespersons, engineers and drudges. The group was a representative of all educational directs fro m basal school to doctorate and other professional degrees and aged between 20 50 years in their right state of mind (Milgram, S., 1963).The dependable variable in this experiment was the maximum shock that the subject, S, was instinctive to administer to the victim L up to that point when he resist to follow the instructions accustomed to him by the experimenter. The independent variables were the learner (an experimental confederate) and the experimenters orders.There were two participants in each case. They were a nave subject who compete the role of a teacher and was provided with a 450 volt electric shock generator and the second one a confederate who played the role of a learner. The task of the teacher was to read to the learner a list of word pairs. The learner on the other hand was to move correctly to these pairs of words by pressing the button as an indicator of his response. In case of a impairment answer the teacher was to administer an electric shock to the lear ner. For each subsequent wrong answer, the teacher would increase the voltage.Even though the subject intrustd that the learner was receiving the actual shock, the learner, being in a separate room, sets up a tape recorder which had been incorporated to the electric shock generator. This tape played sounds which had been pre-recorded to march each shock level. The presupposed victim (learner) would start to bang the wall separating him from the subject at given numbers of voltage increase. He would continue banging on the wall and complaining of amount of money condition until all the responses from him ceased. The data collected was based on how much electric shock the subjects were willing to inflict on the victim. This was to portend their level of obedience and to see their willingness to obey the orders if it they were doing it deliberately or did it against their will.Resultslastly it was discovered that out of the 40 participants 14 subjects showed explicit signs of nervou s laughter and smiling which were inapt and weird. trine of the subjects developed irrepressible convulsions. According to the results obtained, it is evident that while responding to the demands prompted by the appraisals, 40 themes exceed the projected break-off point.none of them administered the electric shock below 300 volts, a point when the victim starts to kick the wall and provided no answers to the teachers questions. 5 of them stops at the 300 volt level 4 of them harvest-festival to 315 volt level 2 breaks of at 330 volt level 3 others drop off at 345, 360 and 375 volts respectively. These 14 subjects were defiant to the experimenters instructions. They were recurrently in a frantic and enraged condition. However 26 of the 40 subjects were obedient enough to proceed on to punish the victim till they attain the shock of 450 volts. But they do this against their will. They could be observed to be in consternation once the experiment was brought to a halt.DiscussionThe re sults obtained imply that there are people who, despite receiving orders from authority, would choose to defy and stick to what they believe is morally acceptable. In this case the 14 subjects held this belief and would not inflict pain on another person against his/her will. It was however observed that some people would choose to act against their conscience and submit to authority even if what they are ordered to do is against moral principles.This what the 26 subjects did despite expressing some signs of displeasure in shocking an innocent person, they still go on to obey the commands to the end. This implies that obedience to authority can arrive harmless and non-hostile individuals to turn inhuman.The results seems to be in contrast to those predicted in the questionnaire where only 3 out of 100 respondents said they would proceed to administer electric shock to their victim up to the most maximum and high-risk shock of 450 volts. In this case however, the figure was surpris ingly high 26 out of 40. It had also been pass judgment that a subjected would basically terminate or proceed as dictated by his conscience. However the subjects exhibited strain and emotional strain in their response to the commands. CritiqueThe experiment was well conducted and its objective was attained. The volunteers were got through a New Have (Connecticut) daily newspaper advert and direct mail to some informing them outcome part in the study of reminiscence as well as the learning designate conducted in a laboratory at Yale University. The real purpose of the experiment was hidden from the subjects until the experiment was over they knew that the experiment was a study of memory and learning yet it was about study of obedience to authority.Another thing was that the entire volunteers were to play the role of the teacher while that of the student was played by an experimental confederate. In addition, the generator that the teacher used was just but of 45 volts sample shoc k with the generator not wired to shock the learner. Lastly, the kicking of the wall by the learner, screams and his rejection to proceed and the commands/orders of the experimenter to the teacher were all skillfully fabricated. These indicate the researchers thoroughness in the design of the experiment to answer their specific research question. Most importantly, at the end of the experiment subjects underwent some procedures to assist them go back to normal well being.The researchers did not however deal with every feasible alternative explanation for their results. This might be attributes to the fact that they expected the subjects to show some level of obedience. Also, the subjects might have been expected to act accordingly and participate fully to make the research successfully bearing in mind that the real objective of the experiment was hidden from them.It should be stated here that there are some people who will not, at whatsoever cost, accept to administer any level of e lectric shock to another person. The research was also not well represented in terms of gender or the researchers did not specify the sex of the participants. This raises the question about the criteria that was used in selecting the subjects. But all in all the experiment was quite essential as it the positive and the contradict nature of human beings.Reference Milgram. S. (1969) Study on behavioral obedience, Journal of Abnormal and social psychological science 371-378.http//www.wadsworth.com/psychology_d/templates/student_resources/0155060678_rathus/ps/index.html