Modern Interpretation of the Stanley Milgram Experiment - Coursework Example

MILGRAM Introduction The current investigation looks at the famous Stanley Milgram, whose writings on obedience and ity are still widely followed today and whose famous psychological experiment and the controversy it caused at the time it was conducted, gained him fame as well as a certain degree of notoriety. This report also examines the question of the driving force behind the findings, and assumes that this driving force is based on humans being obedient and eager to please (to a fault) in strange new social situations; in other words, it is not as much about the authority, as it is the obedience. The main focus of this report is a modern interpretation of the experiment, in the context of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq. “The incidents occurred within a very hierarchical organization; the abusers had no particular background to suggest they would behave outrageously; and the abusers asserted they were following orders and documented what they did” (Could, 2004). Milgram experiment Milgram’s study set out to determine how people obeyed orders, even when these orders went against their personal sense of morality and rules of conduct. The study employed 40 participants who were culled from the local population without regard to economic and social differences so that a wide cross-section of individuals participated. The participants were solicited through advertisements or direct mailings. They arrived at Yale University to participate in what they were told was a study about the effectiveness of punishment in teaching. They were asked to give a series of electric shocks to another participant (actually a part of the larger experiment) when he gave wrong answers to a word-association test. The planned participant was not actually shocked, but the participant optimally believed he was being so. The levels of shocks ranged from light to dangerous, and the participants were ordered to increase the shocks with each wrong answer. The planned participant was instructed to give many incorrect answers. A survey of psychology students at Yale prior to the study revealed that the students expected only an infinitesimal minority of participants to proceed with the experiment through the “severe shock” level. The results of the experiment showed that more than half of the participants followed through past this level to the conclusion of the experiment. “After the maximum shocks had been delivered, and the experimenter called a halt to the proceedings, many obedient subjects heaved sighs of relief, mopped their brows… or nervously fumbled for cigarettes” (Milgram, 1963, p. 29). The study showed that people were willing to suspend morality and the golden rule when following orders in a controlled environment. Driving force of obedience The obedience of the orders was what made the Milgram experiment so famous and shocking, not the authority. If the study had been about the authority of the orders, it would have had different contexts. For example, instead of using the scientist and actor-responder roles, they could have used military roles, teacher roles, civilian police roles, and other authority roles, and then compared results on the subjects. But in the Milgram experiment, the authority was always the same: the scientific researcher role was the sole source of authority. What this study was about, was the different degrees of obedience in the subjects. In terms of obedience, Milgram’s study is also related to the issue of groupthink, which is a type of conformity. For example, Milgram finds that separation from normal circumstances had a significant relationship to the formation of obedience and following symptoms, but they did not find any sustainable correlation between the level of predisposition to conformity and the formation of similar symptoms based on authority. Therefore, the results of the experiment were generally mixed in terms of results on obedience, not authority. Milgram put their results within a framework of existing literature explicitly in the experiment and the presentation of data, and find parallels and correlations between existing literature and their own conclusions and result. Some would see a positive value in Milgram. Others may believe that dynamic external environments require quick decision-making methods within any planning structure that claims to be an agent of change, and that people naturally want to please authority in these situations. Groups will generally have more capacity to be obedient and capture alternatives, as well as being increasingly able to make decisions through group decision-making processes that are often, as Milgram shows, based on obedience to other group members or respondents. However, it is acknowledged that working in groups requires more effort for some individuals who are not as attenuated in terms of dynamic atmospheres that focus more on stability, and there are exceptions to every rule in terms of reaction. Modern interpretation One of the most obvious choices for a modern interpretation of the Milgram experiment is the relatively recent Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq. In this scandal, US Armed Forces members at a prison in Iraq systematically abused prisoners and took pictures of their actions, often posing with prisoners and smiling, while the prisoners were in various states of distress and discomfort, and almost always wearing sensory deprivation hoods. In other words, they caused pain and discomfort in others, apparently with little negative psychological or emotional effects, in a systematic way, in a controlled environment, and under explicit orders from the director of Abu Ghraib prison. When the media got some of the pictures, a giant scandal ensued, and the systematic abuse was exposed. One reason that the Abu Ghraib scandal emphasizes Milgram’s points is that it is a direct chain between Milgram and Zimbardo, whose famous psychological experiment on prison conditions also showed the relative ease of organized, systematic inhumanity performed by those following or obeying orders. “This is where social behavior gets very interesting. What the research shows is that people in these cases tend to deflect personal responsibility. Perhaps they blame the authority who ordered them to do it” (Breckler, 2009). In fact, when the soldiers in the photographs were questioned about the scandal, this is exactly what they did: said they were just following orders, and thus blamed the next higher-up. Like the participants in Milgram’s experiment, the soldiers at Abu Ghraib had many possible avenues to blame for their behavior, from the commanding officers, to the situation, to the victims, or anywhere else, but themselves. This behavior was shown to be very common to the individuals who “shocked” the actor in Milgram’s experiment: they often very explicitly blamed the scientist or researcher who was perceived to be controlling the experiment, or the actor for not following instructions, but none blamed themselves. “The research shows that harm doing can be reduced by getting people to assume personal responsibility for their actions. Even in the Milgram obedience experiments, giving a little personal control back to the participants was a very effective way of reducing their harmful actions” (Milgram, 2009). The challenge of the future is to reduce this sort of harm. Conclusion Overall, the current investigation has argued that obedience is more important than authority to Milgram’s experiment, and that this experiment can be seen clearly in the modern context of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. It is recommended that in the future, systemic measures to reduce blind obedience are considered in many high risk situations and areas. The need for specification interaction and group collaboration is significant, since this builds the team at the foundational level, but too much group unity can lead to bad decisions, too much conformity, and conflict. There are many causes of conflict. Conflict is negative, and effective communication embraces an aspect of positivity that reflects upon both the sender and the receiver. Only by truly communicating our plans, needs, and desires can groups garner effective results. And these results are often the result of a decision-making process, which is closely linked to patterns of effective communication. The importance of positive and practical decision-making cannot be over-stressed. “It depends entirely on the special situations in which we might become enmeshed. These young men and women mistreating prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison pictures were embedded in an evil barrel” (How, 2009). As a society, we must watch out for the type of situation where abuse like this is most likely to occur, and try to control for it. REFERENCE Breckler, S. (2009). Abu Ghraib and human behavior http://www.apa.org/ppo/issues/breckler604.html Milgram, S (2009). Obedience to authority. http://home.swbell.net/revscat/perilsOfObedience.html Could Abu Ghraib happen again (2004). http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/04/q4/1125-fiske.htm How psychology can help explain Iraq prisoner abuse (2009). http://www.apa.org/topics/iraqiabuse.html Milgram, S (2002). Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology. Read More