Question

Reflections of the Stanley Milgrams experiment (Electric Shock) please at least 3 pages

Answer 1

Milgram was on The obedience to authority that a person would be displaying. This experiment was carried out by one of the psychologists of the Yale university. The willingness of a person to obey orders and obey an authority was found out in these experiments.

In this experiments , participants were made to believe that they had been assisting in an experiment that was unrelated, where, they were supposed to administer shocks to a learner. These were fake electric shocks, the intensity of which increased gradually and if these shocks were in reality, they would have been fatal.

Three individuals had taken part in every session of this experiment:

• The "experimenter", who had been conducting the sessions.
• The "teacher", who was volunteer. The "teacher" had been made to believe that they were only assisting, whereas these people were the subjects of this experiment.
• The "learner", was the actor who was acting to be the volunteer.

The subject arrived with the actor at the session. The experimenter explained that these people had been taking part in "a scientific study for memory as well as learning", they wanted to check the effects of punishment on the subject for being able to memorize content.

the teacher as well as the learner had been taken in a nearby room where the learner had been strapped into the electric chair. The experimenter said the participant that this was done so as to ensure that the learner would not be able to escape.

At one point before the actual test, the teacher had been given the sample shock for experiencing what the shock would be to the learner.

The teacher as well as learner had been separated later, so that they would not be able to see one other. The teacher had then been given word list of pairs that the learner would be taught. The teacher started reading the word list to learner. The teacher would start by reading the first word and follow by reading four optional answers. The learner would be indicating his response by pressing the button. On an incorrect answer, the teacher would be giving an electric a shock to learner. the voltage would be increasing in increments of 15-volt after every wrong answer. The teacher would be reading the next word if the answer was correct.

The subjects thought that for every incorrect answer, the learner had been receiving real shocks but there were no shocks in reality. After the learner had been separated from teacher, prerecorded were being planning yed for every shock level. As there was an increase of the voltage shocks, the learner would yell and would protest louder, and would be banging on the wall repeatedly. The learner went silent after reaching the highest voltage.

If the teacher wanted to stop the experiment at any time, the experimenter would be giving specific verbal prods. These were in the following order:

1. Please continue.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice, you must go on.

The subjects continued. This experiment showed that under authority almost 65% of the participants inflicted maximum voltage. Though people trembled to do so, they obeyed the authority and inflicted harm on the patients.