MILGRAM'S STUDY ON OBEDIENCE AND CONFORMITY

Milgram's Study on Obedience and Conformity



Milgram's Study on Obedience and Conformity

Introduction

In 1961 and 1962, a chain of experimentation was conducted by Milgram, at the Yale University. This study and experimentations captivated and stunned the scientific society due to the methods used to conduct the research and due to its surprising findings. The Milgram study is one of the most well-known studies in psychology and in 1974 was also printed in his book Obedience to Authority. The study was designed to investigate the obedience of the people to authority. Milgram wanted to investigate the limit an individual would go in following orders of an authorized person to hurt another human (Aronson, 2004). He wanted to research about the reactions of the people under ordinary situations. The experiment was faced by many critiques yet this experimentation offers a surprising result on the power of authority over individuals.

The Experiment

Different volunteers belonging to various fields were paid to take part in this experiment. In the experiment, two individuals were asked to draw out slip of paper to determine who will be the teacher and who will be the learner. The volunteer didn't know that both of the slips said 'teacher'. The other person was the confederate who was playing the role of the learner. Both of the individuals were separated into different rooms where they could interact with each other but couldn't see each other (Aronson, 2004). The teacher was given a list of pair words and was told to test the learner by reading aloud the word and then giving four possible solutions. If the learner gave the correct answer then the teacher would move onto the other question. However if the learner gave the wrong answer, then the teacher was to administer a shock to the learner. The voltage of the shock was increased by 15 volts for each wrong answer.

The teacher thought that the learner was receiving electric shocks for each wrong answer. However in reality this was not true. After the confederate (learner) was separated from the teacher, the confederate set up a tape recorder which played pre recorded sounds of pain for each level of the shocks. The teacher as made to believe that the learner was actually receiving those shocks. The teacher was required to listen to the sound of pain coming from the next room which increased from small grunts to screaming. After a while those screams accompanied by loud banging on the walls and after that all sounds from the learner ceased (Fromm, 1973).

The main attention was not on the learner but on the teacher's reaction to the sounds of pain. The way the teacher was coping at the thought that he was the one who was administrating pain to another human being. The main purpose of the experiment was to place an individual in a certain situation in which they were given commands by an authorized individual and to observe the reactions of the subject ...