Obedience to Authority - Essay Example

Running Head: SOCIAL INFLUENCE: OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY Social Influence: Obedience to Authority [The Author’s Name] [The name of the Institution] Social Influence: Obedience to Authority Obedience is when an individual would act in response to a direct order from another person. Some situations move beyond requests for action and entail direct orders from one person to another. Although obedience is needed for society to function, it can also have destructive effects in the wrong authority. (Baumrind, 1964, 421) People may obey orders of a destructive manner that can have detrimental effects, for example people obeying their leaders with orders of torture and killing. However, obedience can also be used for good, because without obedience society would not function successfully. In 1974, Stanley Milgram conducted a study that proved how well people obey authority figures. The experiment involved a teacher and a learner. The learner was placed in one room, hooked up to electrodes, and asked to answer questions administered by the teacher. The teacher, in the other room was told to give an electric shock to the learner every time he answered incorrectly. In addition to the shock, the teacher was to increase the shock 15 volts every time the learner responded incorrectly. The voltage levels ranged from 15 to 450 volts. The teacher was informed that the shocks would hurt, but would not cause any damage to the learner. (Milgram, 2004, 131-35) As the voltage increased with each shock, the teacher could hear the learner cry out in pain. At 300 volts, most of the teachers would question the nature of the experiment, and then were reassured by the experimenter and told to go on. As the voltage of the shocks increased, the learner would pound on the wall and continue to cry out. Even though many teachers struggled to give the shock; some sweating, becoming agitated, or trembling, most administered the shock up to the 450-volt level (Milgram, 2004, 131-35). Fortunately, no real shocks were given in this experiment. The learner was pretending to be shocked (Milgram, 1963, 371-78). The only true shock of this experiment was the morality of the teacher. In all of the situations, the teacher was a normal person. In one situation, the teacher was a devout catholic, who hesitated to give the shock, but once she was told to go on by the experimenter, she continued to the 450-volt shock. Amazingly, sixty five percent of the teachers went all the way to the 450 volts (Milgram, 2004, 131-35). So does this experiment conclude that a large majority of our population is unethical; absolutely not. It proves that people tend to respect and comply with the demands of authority figures. In many cases, that respect has been abused in such situations of the holocaust. Not every Nazi soldier agreed with Hitler and happily exterminated millions of Jewish people. Not every person who is told to lie by a respected individual believes what they are doing is right. (Milgram, 1963, 371-78) Given the knowledge based on this experiment, the power authority figures hold can be used to do good things for our world. Authority may also be the answer to weight loss. Many people spend time and money on dieting; work out tapes, gym memberships, and exercise equipment. The problem with these weight loss solutions, more often than not, is the inability for a person to be consistent with a programme. If gyms would require that there members use their membership three to four days a week for two months, people might tend to stick with their exercise program. Requiring that members make an appointment to exercise might even work, especially if there is a small fee for members who frequently cancel their work out appointments. In every rising problem today, it seems that there is a degree of authority that could possibly control it. Mailgram proved that people tend to obey authority, even if they don’t agree with the authority figure. (Miller, 1986, 38) Rather than to manipulate the trust we give those respected people it should be used to our advantage. By making it necessary for us to do things that are of our advantage and not to do things that are to our disadvantage, people might be more likely to live a better lifestyle simply because someone they respected told them they had to. The social experiment performed by Stanley Milgram in 1963, involved more of an overt approach, where the experimenter himself became an influence upon the actions of the test subjects. This social experiment was performed in a laboratory, consisting of two confederates, a fake electric chair, and a fake power board composed of numerous switches ranging from mild 60-volts to an extreme 450-volts. One confederate strapped to the electric chair would act as if he were really being shocked when providing the wrong word in a series of words he was to memorize and repeat back to the unknowing test subject, the teacher. Following a wrong response, the teacher would then administer a mild to stronger shock per the experimenter’s request to do so upon the confederate. (Miller, 1986, 38) During the first trial that involved forty Yale college men, twenty-five of who obeyed the orders given by the experimenter to the end, after a 450-volt of shock was apparently administered three times the experiment ended. The second trial performed on individuals from every walk of life, produced identical results. These trials relieved the individuals involved from decision-making, absolving them of any responsibility for their own actions. Feeling as if they had a sense of duty to the project, many of these individuals who knew or wanted to do the right thing may have felt pressure to be compliant to the experimenter in producing or achieving the desired results, since this was what they had signed up to do.( Kilham, 1974, 692-702)  The results of both the Asch and Milgram experiments were profound and underwent enormous amounts of criticism from others who felt that a person’s values, beliefs, ideals, and opinions could not have possibly been swayed so easily when confronted by opposing views or authoritative persuasion. These studies show how quickly and easily a person surrenders his/her own power of ability to think as an independent one in order to become part of another. Undeniably, these experiments show that people will uncritically and painlessly submit to suggestion or stature without fully understanding the implications of their decisions. (Ableson, 2004, 66-69)          These social psychological studies are reinforced by the fact that the majority of these uninformed individuals must have felt some sort of anxiety about the situation and in order to relieve this pressure and anxiety gave in to the group or its leader. The results of the Philip Zimbardo prison experiment strengthen this notion by showing that through conformity and obedience individuals took on the characteristics of their assigned roles. The individuals chosen to be wardens of this experiment displayed tactics of punishment to the extent that this two-week trial had to be stopped after only six days. The individuals who where chosen to be prisoners took on this helpless role almost immediately, realizing that by producing no attention they would receive no punishment. (Zimbardo, 1991, 79-82)        The main objective answered here is how an individual will perform not based on their underlying attitude but on the presence of others. Solomon Asch relying on conformity, Stanley Milgram on obedience, and Philip Zimbardo on de-individualization. Overall, these experiments show how one dominant persuasive individual can control others and large groups. It is also worth noting that Milgram was not entirety consistent in his view about the source of his experimenter's power as an authority. (Zimbardo, 1991, 79-82) Or, more precisely, he seemed to have shifted his position somewhat later in his career. Stanley Milgram's studies of obedience are widely taken to show that it is disturbingly easy to devise circumstances in which decent people will act badly. (Milgram, 1963, 371-78) The subjects in Milgram's experiments were told that their task was to serve as "teachers" in an investigation of the effects of punishment on learning. The teachers were directed to ask questions of learners and to apply an electric shock to the learners when they gave the wrong answer. After each shock, the voltage was to be turned up a step, so the shocks were progressively more severe. Teachers and learners were told that although the shocks would eventually become very painful, they would not cause any tissue damage. The teacher’s subjects thought that the learners were volunteer subjects like themselves, but actually the learners were in cahoots with the experimenter. (Kilham, 1974, 692-702). The learners gave wrong answers with some frequency, and they gave convincing performances of being in increasingly severe agony when the teacher-subjects pressed dummy shock buttons. Milgram found that 65 percent of the subjects would continue to administer what they thought were increasingly painful shocks until they reached the end of the experiment and the experimenter gave them permission to stop. To ensure that subjects would not know anything about "obedience experiments," Milgram sought men who were not connected with academia. (Miller, 1986, 38) One consequence of this was that these individuals were likely to be unfamiliar with psychological research, laboratories, and the role of experimental subjects. Their lack of familiarity with their situation, combined with their inability to judge for themselves the importance of completing the experiment and the consequences for the study of their refusing to complete it, must have made it very difficult for them to judge whether they should continue to hurt the learner or withdraw. One critic of Milgram's treatment of his experimental subjects pointed out that a volunteer subject in a laboratory, like a patient in a clinic, reasonably expects help and protection from professionals: "The laboratory is unfamiliar as a setting and the rules of behaviour ambiguous compared to a clinician's office. Because of the anxiety and passivity generated by the setting, the subject is more prone to behave in an obedient, suggestible manner in the laboratory than elsewhere.... The baseline for these phenomena as found in the laboratory is probably much higher than in most other settings." (Baumrind, 1964, 421) The ordinary compassionate person, unfamiliar with psychology experiments and laboratories, is in a very poor position to resolve the difficult moral conflict Milgram created for him. The claim that 65 percent of Milgram's subjects acted badly is open to serious doubt. The plausibility of Milgram's account of what his studies showed depends upon our focusing upon a single consideration, avoiding causing pain, and a single trait, compassion. The behaviour is viewed as resulting from the subject's slavish deference to authority. People become a member of a social group because of their very nature, that is, not to feel lonely, to feel secure, and to satisfy some needs such as social and self-esteem needs. Being part of a group has both positive and negative outcomes for an individual. One of the positive outcomes is enjoying group work. In a group work people perform their tasks quicker and in a more effective way. In a group, each person seems to be more capable. Working together provides a perfect information flow. People share their knowledge and skills with one another. By that way, people can feel themselves like a team because they are acting as a single body and are having responsibilities. Such kind of a group work provides each member with new perspectives which is a result of the exchange of ideas between group members. Therefore, they start to look from a different and a more brooder window. Involving in a social group provide opportunities for making friends. This is another positive aspect of social groups. People feel themselves better when they have more friends and worse when they do not. On this issue, Allgeyer (1996, 159-67) stated that patients who suffer from cancer and have no friends need more medical care than those who have friends. That proves the importance of the social groups in people's lives. Only through this way they can become social and enjoy lives more. Groups play an important role in our lives even though it causes conflicts between group members and losing time. A group is a good shelter that satisfies some of the basic needs of the people involved such as social and self-esteem needs. Further more it helps people to gain new perspectives, to be more creative, and to find new friends. Overall, a group is a social institute which combines various kinds of people who are different in mind, appearance, age and gender. References Ableson, R. P., Frey, K. P., & Gregg, A. P. (2004). Experiments with people: Revelations from social psychology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 66-69 Allgeyer, Jean M. 1996: “Resolving Individual Crises through Group Methods.” In Howard J. Parad, H. L. P. Resnik and Libbie G. Parad, eds., Emergency and Disaster Management, pp. 159–67. Asch, S. E. ( 1955 ). "Opinions and Social Pressure". Scientific American, 193, 31-35. Baumrind, Diana. “Some Thoughts on Ethics of Research: After Reading Milgram's 'Behavioural Study of Obedience'." American Psychologist 19 (1964), p. 421. Kilham, W., & Mann, L. (1974). Level of destructive obedience as a function of transmitter and executant roles in the Milgram obedience paradigm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29, 696-702. Milgram S. (2004). Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. Harper Perennial Modern Classics: 131-35 Milgram, Stanley "Behavioural Study of Obedience," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67.4 (1963), 371-78 Miller, Arthur G. The Obedience Experiments. New York: Praeger, 1986, p. 38. Zimbardo, G Philip, Michael R Leippe, 1991: The Psychology of Attitude Change and Social Influence: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 3 edition: 79-82 Read More