>> Support material: Chapter 4


Chapter 4: Sociological investigations

 

Case studies Video clips Weblinks Further reading Podcasts
Case studies Video clips Weblinks Further reading Podcasts

*Resources for this chapter were prepared by Tara Renae McGee.

Case study

The Milgram experiment (Obedience to Authority Study)

Stanley Milgram’s research demonstrated that the disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority (Milgram 1963). The impetus for his research was the trial for the war crimes of Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking Nazi in the SS. Eichmann was responsible for the logistical planning of the deportation of people to concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Europe. One of the arguments put forward by many of those who were on trial for war crimes was that they were simply following orders. Milgram’s series of experiments attempted to identify to what extent people would follow orders from authority figures.

The experiment was described to the participants as a learning task in which they would assist in an experiment on the relationship between punishment and learning. The experimenter placed one subject (the teacher) in a room with a device that administered electric shocks. In the room next door, another subject (the learner), was hooked up to the electric shock device. Each time the learner made a mistake the experimenter instructed the teacher to administer an electric shock. With each subsequent mistake, the voltage of the shock increased. Even when the learner protested loudly in the other room, the experimenter instructed the teacher to continue administering the electric shock with each error made.

This experiment placed the teachers in a very stressful situation, but you may be somewhat relieved to know that the learner in the other room was a confederate of the experimenter. The learner was not being administered an electric shock and was acting when he screamed out in pain. Milgram’s research raises many ethical concerns and caused a great deal of controversy when it was first published in 1963. The main concern was in relation to the traumatic experience that the participants (teachers) were subjected to.

Irrespective of these ethical concerns, Milgram’s research provides important information regarding the willingness of ordinary people to submit to an authority figure. ‘While we would like to believe that when confronted with a moral dilemma we will act as our conscience dictates, Milgram’s obedience experiments teach us that in a concrete situation with powerful social constraints, our moral sense can easily be trampled’ (Blass 2002).

A common reaction to the Milgram experiment today is to believe that people would surely not repeat the blind faith in authority and follow orders that they knew would cause people harm. In fact this is not the case. In a recreation of the infamous experiment, researchers used volunteers acting as teachers. The teachers were matched to unseen pupils, who were given an electric shock if unable to repeat a sequence of words. Prompted by an authority figure, the teachers administered electric shocks despite the students screaming to them to stop (Alleyne 2008).

References and further reading:
Alleyne, R. 2008, ‘People blindly follow morally questionable orders from superiors, study finds’, The Telegraph (online edition), December 8, 2008,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3833364/People-blindly-follow-morally-questionable-orders-from-superiors-study-finds.html (Accessed June 9, 2010).
Blass, T. 1999, ‘The Milgram Paradigm after 35 Years: Some things we now know about obedience to authority’, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 25, pp. 955–78.
Blass, T. 2002, ‘The man who shocked the world’, Psychology Today, Mar/Apr,
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200203/the-man-who-shocked-the-world (Accessed June 4, 2010).
Blass, T. 2004, The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram, Basic Books, New York.
Milgram, S. 1963, ‘Behavioral study of obedience’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 67, pp. 371–8.

Web sources for the Nuremberg Trials
1. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/nuremberg.htm
2. http://www.nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/

Discussion questions

  1. What would you have done if you had been one of Milgram’s study participants? Would you have continued as instructed or refused to participate? Would your view change if it affected your university grade?
  2. Have a look at some of the web sources listed above for the Nuremberg Trials. Given what you know about Milgram’s research, can you explain the war crimes carried out by those on trial? Were they just following orders? If yes, does this make it acceptable? If no, how else would you explain their behaviour?
  3. Can you think of a situation where you complied with a direction/order that you did not agree with? Why did you do this?

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