The Perils Of Obedience Summary example essay topic

In Stanley Milgram's article, "The Perils of Obedience", the Yale University psychologist summarizes his experiments to determine if ordinary people, simply obeying instructions, can become instruments in a frightening, malicious process. His conclusions show that people frequently will obey authority even when commands create a dilemma with their consciences. In the study, the dilemma is between the desire to satisfy a superior's instructions and the guilt caused by inflicting pain on an innocent person. In Milgram's basic experimental setup, ordinary people were recruited and brought into a laboratory to participate in what they were told was a study of exploring the effects of punishment on learning behavior. On arrival, they were given the role of the teacher, but were actually the unknowing subjects of the experiment. The subjects - "teachers"- would read a series of word pairs to the "learner", who then was asked to select the correct corresponding word from four alternatives.

The teacher was asked to administer an electric shock of increasing intensity for each mistake the learner made. The teacher was not aware that the "learner" in the study was actually an actor who was merely indicating discomfort as the "teacher" increased the electric shocks. The actor was seated into what looked like a mini electric chair, his arms strapped and an electrode attached to his wrist. The buttons that activated the shocks were labeled on the device and ranged from mild to extremely dangerous. Conflict arose when the fictitious learner began to express his irritation. "At 75 volts, he complains loudly; at 150, he demands to be released from the experiment.

As the voltage increases, his protest becomes more vehement and emotional. At 285 volts, his response can be described as an agonized scream. Soon, thereafter, he makes no sound at all". (Milgram, 318) Milgram tested many subjects, including Gretchen Brandt, a 31-year-old technician. When told to dispense 210 volts to the learner she firmly says to the instructor, "Well, I'm sorry, I don't think we should continue". (Milgram, 319) As part of the experiment the instructor insist that Brandt continue until the learner has learned all the word pairs correctly.

She refuses and the experiment is discontinued. Brandt's mannerly behavior, and total control of her own conduct, was the exact outcome that Milgram had hypothesized. Before conducting the experiments, Milgram sought predictions of the outcome from a wide variety of people. Virtually all subjects would refuse to obey the experimenter, they believed, predicting that a normal person could not be induced into severely shocking a stranger without provocation. These opinions gave way to an unexpected outcome.

At the beginning of the experiment, Yale undergraduate students were used as subjects, and 60 percent of them were fully obedient. However, a colleague of Milgram's dismissed these findings as having no relevance to "ordinary" people because Yale undergraduates are extremely aggressive. Milgram's colleague argued that when "ordinary" people such as white- and blue-collar workers are tested, the results would be very different. He was wrong, the experiment's total outcome was consistent to observations among the students. Fred Prozi, another subject, was tested by Milgram. At the beginning of the experiment, Prozi said that he couldn't stand it, and he was not going to kill the learner.

As the experiment continued, Prozi kept saying that he would not kill the learner and take the responsibility of his death. The experimenter then assured Prozi that he would accept all responsibility. All of a sudden, Prozi's reactions changed, and as long as the learner's answers were given incorrectly, he continued administering shocks from 195 volts all the way up to several 450 volt shocks. When a pupil no longer feels responsible for his actions he becomes much more susceptible in submitting to authority. Milgram gives us another subject, Morris Braverman, who had a strange reaction. He laughed uncontrollably as he obeyed all orders and administered all shocks.

In an interview following the experiment, Braverman justifies his laughing because he felt totally helpless to disobey. His justification gave way to a much scarier thought. Braverman felt he was simply doing his job, as did Adolf Eichmann, who organized the slaughter of millions of Jews. The last subject Milgram points to is Bruno Batt a. Milgram changes the experimental setup in which the teacher must directly administer the shock by forcing the learners hand onto a shock plate.

Bruno calmly completes the entire experiment with little hostility. He is so caught up in doing is job he becomes blind to the learner's pain. He acts with no regard to consequences, instead his sole purpose is to do his job correctly by completing the entire experiment. Several other subjects were tested in the same situation.

Despite Bruno's reactions, the direct interaction between the teacher and learner created a drop in obedience from 65% to 40%. Milgram tested this theory in reverse by conducting an experiment where the teacher was required to pull a lever which would cause another person to administer shocks. In this case the obedience level went up from 65% to 93%. Once again the test was modified to investigate changes that would cause the experimenter to have less authority, thus the subjects being more disobedient. Subjects were now allowed to choose the intensity of the shocks delivered. Most people would not go beyond the mildest of shocks.

In another variation, the experimenter gave instructions over the phone. Only one-third of the subjects delivered full shock. The physical presence of the experimenter was directly related to the obedience of the subject. Subjects were also more likely to disobey if there was more then one experimenter, and they showed disagreement with one another.

Finally, when the subjects were placed in a group of dissenting peers, the subjects were more prone to disobedience. Milgram's test showed that ordinary people, in being subordinate to an authority they defer to, are willing to preform heinous acts in the name of that authority, even though they may find those acts personally object able. Milgram, in closing, related the findings of his experiment to the people responsible for the war crimes of the Nazi Party in Germany during World War 2. He suggested that the crimes were committed by ordinary people who deferred responsibility for their murderous actions to a higher authority within a perverted structure of command.

Milgram, Stanley. "The Perils of Obedience". Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. 8th ed. Eds. Lawrence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen.

New York: Longman, 2003 pg. 316-328.