Over 50 years ago, Stanley Milgram conducted some of the most influential and co
ID: 3495663 • Letter: O
Question
Over 50 years ago, Stanley Milgram conducted some of the most influential and controversial research on the Social psychological concept of obedience. Milgram found that over 65% of the subjects in his study willingly delivered highly dangerous shock levels to another person, simple because they were told to do so by someone in authority. The lessons most people drew from his research was that ordinary people could be convinced to commit acts of cruelty simply because they were told to do it by a person in a position of authority. However, recently psychologists have suggested that the behavior of Milgram’s research participants may not have been due to their blindly obeying an authority figure.
In paragraph form answer the following questions: (Minimum 100 words, include word count
Discuss at least two other explanations that critics give for the behavior of subjects in Milgram’s study, other than that they were blindly following the orders of someone in authority (2 pts)
Explanation / Answer
Stanley Milgram conducted his research on the concept of obedience to someone in authority during the time of the Nazi War. When the results of his experimental research confirmed that more than 65% of individuals succumbed to obeying another person in authority, it became a general notion that 'people are likely to do what they were told to do by a person in a position of authority'.
However, there are various explanations that critics give for the behaviour of subjects in Milgram's study. The first being, the subject conformed to the person in authority because he thought of the experimenter to be an 'expert' and assumed he would be knowing what he is doing and thus did not think twice before obeying his instructions.
The other explanation describing the reason behind obeying is that the subject trusted the person in authority and did not think that it would do any harm to another person receiving dangerous shocks.
(Word count: 157 words).
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