Question

If you were a participant in Milgram’s research on conformity, how far do you think you would go in carrying out orders? Do you see a problem with the experimenter’s manipulation of the control subjects? What can you conclude from his experiment, and how can you use this information?

A few questions to keep in mind when addressing this weeks’ topic:

Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Study
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

How was this study conducted? What was the purpose of the study? What were the findings of the study? How do authority figures affect us? Were all of the components of the research process discussed?

Solomon Asch Experiment
http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/social/asch_conformity.html

Why do people conform? What effect does group size have on conformity? What happens if there is just one other dissenter in the group?

Below is a link to a trailer for the film “Experimenter” based on the Milgram experiments.

Answer 1

Stanley Milgram conducted a landmark study in the area of social conformity wherein he demonstrated the evidence that individuals are likely to agree with the group and follow the group tendency in their thoughts and behaviour even when it may have negative consequences or may against their own ethical and moral reasoning. In the study, Participants were led to believe that they were assisting an unrelated experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a "learner". These fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real. Surprisingly, the study found a statistically strong relation between obedience to authority in the experimental participants to even punitive actions even if they were reluctant to do it against their own morality. Milgram explained the results in terms of Asch’s theory of conformity which states that individuals tend to follow the rest of the group or experts when they are clueless or unsure about how to respond in a new situation. Moreover, Milgram theorised that social conformity in the study could demonstrate agentic state theory wherein obedience to authority sets in when people begin to see themselves as instruments to fulfill other people’s wishes and they no longer can feel responsible for their own actions and therefore respond with extreme measures. Base did on these two theories, if I consider myself in the same study as Milgram’s participants, then I can see myself as a dissenter in the situation. I find it highly unlikely that I could persuade myself to follow instructions or commands which go against my own ethical principles. Seeing or imagining others in pain is not easy and it is therefore unlikely that I would give electrical shocks to the learner’s in the study at greater intensity.

The Milgram experiments have been a breakthrough research in addressing some of the emergent political and social incidences of the time such as the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi scientists and officials who defended their actions on grounds of obedience to the authorities. The study has however been highly questioned on grounds of ethics. For one, critics question the extreme level of emotional distress it created in the participants for delivering shocks against their will ss the research involved the use of deception where the actual purpose of the study was not told to the participants before the collection of data. Moreover, it is argued by scholars that a proper follow up debriefing procedure was not adequately carried out with the participants after the completion of the study and this led many participants with no closure and healthy resolution of their negative affect that were triggered in the process of the study. Moreover, the study is questioned on grounds of its methodology as the sample chosen was a biased one. The Milgram study had involved only Male participants and moreover the sample was not randomly selected but constituted of individuals who responded to the researcher’s advertisement in a newspaper. The findings are thus questioned for their generalisability to the entire American population.