Obedience to Authority: An Experimental ViewIn the 1960s Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram famously carried out a series of experiments that forever changed our perceptions of morality and free will. The subjects--or "teachers"--were instructed to administer electroshocks to a human "learner," with the shocks becoming progressively more powerful and painful. Controversial but now strongly vindicated by the scientific community, these experiments attempted to determine to what extent people will obey orders from authority figures regardless of consequences. "Obedience to Authority" is Milgram's fascinating and troubling chronicle of his classic study and a vivid and persuasive explanation of his conclusions. |
Contents
The Dilemma of Obedience | 1 |
Method of Inquiry | 13 |
Expected Behavior | 27 |
Copyright | |
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accept action administering shocks agentic answer Antecedent Conditions asked authority system automata behavior Bridgeport carried command compliance confederates conflict continue critical cybernetic David Rosenhan defiant subjects defied the experimenter demands destructive disobedience Dontz effect ego ideal electric chair electric shock ence experimenter's feel forces function Henry Wirz hierarchy human hurt indicated individual instructions Intense Shock 17 interview jects Konrad Lorenz laboratory learning Mean maximum shock mecha mechanisms ment menter Milgram moral naïve subject Nazi Germany nervous obedience experiment obedient subjects obey the experimenter observed occur orders ordinary organization painful participants performance person procedure protests Proximity psychological punishment question refuse responsibility role ROSENBLUM Shock 25 shock level shocking the victim situation Social Psychology STANLEY MILGRAM status strain Strong Shock structure superego switch teacher tension tion told voltage volts Ugh women word pairs Yale Yale University