Reference Information
Title: Obedience to Authority
Author: Stanley Milgram
Publisher: Harper Perennial (1983)
Summary
Stanley Milgram wished to explore obedience, especially in light of the Nazi experimentation. He cites that as an example of obedience gone wrong. The goal of his experiments was to explore adults' willingness to obey authorities and under what circumstances they choose to do so.
He begins the book by discussing how he performed the study, the location and the procedures involved. Essentially there is a teacher (subject) and a "victim". When the victim got something wrong, the teacher was supposed to administer an electric shock. There were different settings in regards to proximity: only wall-pounding feedback, vocal protests and when the "victim" was in the same room.
Many predicted that nearly all subjects would refuse to obey the experimenter and that only a small percentage would administer the strongest voltage. What they found was shocking. 62-65% of adults when told to administer the strongest voltage, did. He performed the study with many different variations and subjects, including women. One of the women was from Germany and decided to stop at 210 volts, most likely in the wake of previous events.
In the last half of the book, he analyzes his previous findings. He discusses that there are many differences between obedience and conformity. Obedience occurs within a hierarchy, conformity is imitation. Action is explicit in obedience and implicit in conformity. Milgram considers many of the forces associated with strain and disobedience. He considers many of the forces that impact a subject before and during the experiment.
In the final chapters, he considers many of the assertions made against the findings of his experiment. He addresses in detail each of them.
Discussion
I didn't realize all of the different experiments that Milgram performed. This book was a very interesting and quick read. I thought that is was great that he included the dissenting opinions and talked about them. The implications of his experiments are scary. Does this change how we can place blame on certain things like WWII or the Vietnam War?
He begins the book by discussing how he performed the study, the location and the procedures involved. Essentially there is a teacher (subject) and a "victim". When the victim got something wrong, the teacher was supposed to administer an electric shock. There were different settings in regards to proximity: only wall-pounding feedback, vocal protests and when the "victim" was in the same room.
Many predicted that nearly all subjects would refuse to obey the experimenter and that only a small percentage would administer the strongest voltage. What they found was shocking. 62-65% of adults when told to administer the strongest voltage, did. He performed the study with many different variations and subjects, including women. One of the women was from Germany and decided to stop at 210 volts, most likely in the wake of previous events.
In the last half of the book, he analyzes his previous findings. He discusses that there are many differences between obedience and conformity. Obedience occurs within a hierarchy, conformity is imitation. Action is explicit in obedience and implicit in conformity. Milgram considers many of the forces associated with strain and disobedience. He considers many of the forces that impact a subject before and during the experiment.
In the final chapters, he considers many of the assertions made against the findings of his experiment. He addresses in detail each of them.
Discussion
I didn't realize all of the different experiments that Milgram performed. This book was a very interesting and quick read. I thought that is was great that he included the dissenting opinions and talked about them. The implications of his experiments are scary. Does this change how we can place blame on certain things like WWII or the Vietnam War?
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