Remember all those times you didn't want to do something, but you have to? What about those time when you knew it was wrong but still did it? Would you have given physical pain to someone if others told you to?
In the APA Press Release, Replicating Milgram: Researcher Finds Most will Administer Shocks to Others when Prodded by 'Authority Figure', studies have shown that ever after the WWII in Germany, people have not changed for more than 40 years. And there is no difference between the men's or women's minds.
Stanley Millgram in 1961 conducted a study in which the situation was similar to WWII. What he did was asked people to come in a small room. There, the people were told that they were given the power to "push the button," and if the person push the button, then in the other room, a person would receive painful electrical shocks and screams of pain can be heard. The person who pushes the button has the right to leave the room and not continue on with the experiment.
Normally, you would think that the person would not push the button and jsut leave right? Well, let's add in an authority leader. Let's have him encourage and tell the person to push the button. What happens? The person will continue to push the buttons many times no matter how loud the screams on the other side of the room are. This continue on until the amount of volts increased to 450.
Note however, that there was nobody on the other side of the room in pain, and nobody was injurded during the process.
This experiment is an example of 'blind obedience.' The same example can be seen during the Holocaust. However, because Millgram's experiment has been debated and due to ethnic codes, psychologists were not entirely sure if Millgram's discovery is valid even to this day.
Jerry M. Burger, PhD, decided to replicate the Millgram's procedure, and test it out himself. He found that people were still willing to 'push' the button but up till 150 volts. He also noted that men and women do not act differently in the same situation.
Even up to this day, we seem to still retain the 'silent' obedient trait when authorities give orders. The very thought of this is shocking and a little bit scary as to how far we're willing to do.
How obedient are you?
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12 comments:
you summarized and described the article very well! :)
Interestinggg, nice and understanding blog
Hmm, interesting experiment of "blind obedience". I think all of us are obedient in some way, but we just don't realize it.
wow that's really interesting.
i guess when we have been conditioned to boy orders from authoirty figures.
Wow. I didnt think that people would actually do that to one another. Nice blog!
great post! i think it's pretty crazy how hard it is for us to stand up for ourselves, even when we know that what we do is harmful to others. i think this experiment is really interesting!
this was a very interesting article and you summarized it beautifuly
Yea ppl are inherently callous and evil. We humans are totally shaped in inequity. Male and female we all are wicked its jus that some of us choose to act against malicious ambition. PPL wont change and this post only reinforces that principle.
This is interesting. Especially after that video we watched about people just being obedient. Great job!
nice point made,doesn't that sounds just like the shock video we watched?obey or not obey
man, when we watched this video, it was intense! hopefully I'm not that dumb in being obedient. I thought I wouldn't go to the high volts but the statistics prove otherwise.
I enjoyed the summarization. Very informative
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