Relevance of Milgrams Research on Obedience - Assignment Example

These subjects showed anxiety, but continued the experiment due to destructive obedience (Milgram, 1974). Though, Milgram faced criticism on ethical ground of his experiment, but he laid a foundation for Hofling obedience experiment. In 1966, Hofling carried out a field experiment, which was more realistic in observing nurses’ behaviour towards authority and their level of obedience. The results indicated that 95% of the nurses were easily inclined to follow orders of authority even when they had a valid reason to question its efficacy (Hofling et.al., 1966).

The Psychological Study of nurses entails that they do not show willingness to question authority and violate hospital rules along with endangering patients’ health. Therefore, it is necessary for student nurses to be prepared not to be influenced by the situational variables for compliance. Thus, in clinical decision making compliance to authority on a hazardous treatment advised by the physicians can cause fatal damage to the patient. Therefore, rational decision making skill is necessary for the nurses to adopt to avoid undue compliance to Physician’s inappropriate orders.

However, surveys indicate that nurses are less likely to admit influence on their clinical decision-making. The controversial issue of destructive obedience remains a question, because the cause of obedience can be superiority of knowledge not undue influence of the authority. Milgram’s obedience paradigm is still relevant in observing the behavioral responses of subordinates.