Reference Information
Title: Opening Skinner's Box
Author: Lauren Slater
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company (2008)
Chapter 2: Obscura (32 pages)
Summary
Slater begins by discussing Stanley Milgram's goals of his study. He wanted to study obedience to authority. People were struggling to understand, post-Holocaust, how so many people could be told to torture and kill over 12 million people with seemingly no dissenting opinion. The experiment essentially worked as follows: the subject would slowly increase the voltage of a shock they gave a person in another room each time that person gave a wrong answer, no matter how that person screamed in pain. It was found that 62-65% of people when faced with an authority, would stay the course to the point of lethal shock.
Slater continued to talk about other experiments Milgram conducted that showed "any normal person can become a killer" when "killing is called for." She also interviewed 2 people, one who was obedient and one who was defiant. Both were impacted heavily. There was a lot of criticism Milgram took for his methods of this experiment.
Discussion
There is no way this experiment could have been conducted today--not with all of the rules, regulations and risks patients must be made aware of before participating in such a study. While shocking, this was an extremely interesting study. Afterwards, no one could "tell just the Milgram experiments meant, what they measure or predicted, or how much meaning to ascribe to their findings." This study raises a lot of interesting questions, namely, what they bring to light about humans.
Slater begins by discussing Stanley Milgram's goals of his study. He wanted to study obedience to authority. People were struggling to understand, post-Holocaust, how so many people could be told to torture and kill over 12 million people with seemingly no dissenting opinion. The experiment essentially worked as follows: the subject would slowly increase the voltage of a shock they gave a person in another room each time that person gave a wrong answer, no matter how that person screamed in pain. It was found that 62-65% of people when faced with an authority, would stay the course to the point of lethal shock.
Slater continued to talk about other experiments Milgram conducted that showed "any normal person can become a killer" when "killing is called for." She also interviewed 2 people, one who was obedient and one who was defiant. Both were impacted heavily. There was a lot of criticism Milgram took for his methods of this experiment.
Discussion
There is no way this experiment could have been conducted today--not with all of the rules, regulations and risks patients must be made aware of before participating in such a study. While shocking, this was an extremely interesting study. Afterwards, no one could "tell just the Milgram experiments meant, what they measure or predicted, or how much meaning to ascribe to their findings." This study raises a lot of interesting questions, namely, what they bring to light about humans.
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