01 marzo, 2010
Publicado por
Carrie H
en
8:02 p. m.
Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) I was an American social psychologist most popular for my controversial study known as the Milgram Experiment to carry out an experiment which would prove the relationship between obedience and authority.
The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the volunteers strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the volunteers ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not.
All began in July 1961, many atrocities had been committed iduring the Second World War. Many culprits were judged in Nuremberg, at the end of the war. The chief defence was that they were only following orders from somebody above. This argument, followed to it's extreme would absolve every person involved in those atrocities, leaving just Hitler as the only person who could be found guilty (as he took orders from no one)! .
Popular opinion for some time after the end of the Second World War was that there was something in the German character that made them particularly cruel. I questioned this dispositional view of the German character. It would follow from this, that most people, regardless of nationality, would perform cruel acts upon another, under certain situations, of course!. Well the defence for many of the war criminals was that they had been just following orders. that's why i thought that people could commit atrocities when they are given orders by somebody in authority.
I tested my hypothesis by using a laboratory experiment. The subjects were chosen from volunteers who had responded to a newspaper article.
The volunteers were paid to participate in the experiment. One of my experimenters made it quite clear that they were paid the money just for appearing at the laboratory, and they were free to leave at anytime without forfeiting the money. Having said this though, the experimenter did not remind the subjects of their right to leave. Later in the experiment the subjects were to be told by the experimenter the exact opposite "You have no choice, you must go on".
The volunteers were told that this was an experiment into the effects of punishment upon learning. So at the beginning of the experiment the real volunteer is introduced to another 'subject' (really the victim was working for me). It is explained that one needs to be the teacher and the other the learner (or victim). A draw is fixed so that the real subject plays the part of the teacher. The victim was strapped into a chair. His wrists were covered with an electrode paste, and electrodes were placed upon the paste. The subject (teacher) is left in no doubt that the learner (victim) can not escape receiving electric shocks. Then the volunteer is taken into an adjoining room and shown the 'shock generator'. volunteer is led to believe that that machine can deliver shocks from 15 volts through to 450 volts to the victim, when really it produces nothing except an impressive electrical noise. The 'shock generator' has a switch for every voltage between 15 and 450 volts increasing in steps of 15 volts. Each switch is labelled, so as to give an impression of how severe the shock is (for example, 'danger: severe shock'). The volunteer was offered a real sample shock of 45 volts . All to convince the teacher that he was really giving shocks to the subject. The instructions were simple. The teacher reads a list of word pairs. The learner has to learn these. The teacher then tests the learner by giving him one of the words in a pair. The learner has to select the given word's paired word from four alternatives given by the teacher. If the learner gets an answer wrong, then he is administered a shock that is 15 volts higher than the voltage of the last shock delivered.
The victim gives responses after each question, until the 300 volt shock. At this point pounding on the wall is heard and there's not response to the question received. As could be expected subjects turned to the experimenter for guidance at this point. My experimenter instructs the teacher to treat the absence of a response as an incorrect answer. At higher voltages the victim gives no response, giving the impression that he is at the very least unconscious, and at the worse dead! Naturally, subjects will turn to the experimenter for guidance again, before administering shocks of greater than 300 volts. The experimenter just order to the volunteer to continue. If the teacher pointed out that it would seem the learner wanted to withdraw from the experiment, the experimenter just insisted to go on until the victim has learned all the word pairs correctly. The experiment would end either when the 450-volt shock had been administered, or when the subject walked out.
Many subjects became extremely nervous. Evidence for this was sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting lips, digging fingernails into their flesh. Fourteen subjects demonstrated nervous laughter. In short, although many subjects administered shocks up to 450 volts, they experienced acute stress. It was very interesting to draw a parallel with the Nazi execution squads, who were given extra rations of alcohol, presumably to counter the stress that their terrible acts produced within themselves.
that's how i concluded that Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become really clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with their morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority
http://www.garysturt.free-online.co.uk/milgram.htm
The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the volunteers strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the volunteers ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not.
All began in July 1961, many atrocities had been committed iduring the Second World War. Many culprits were judged in Nuremberg, at the end of the war. The chief defence was that they were only following orders from somebody above. This argument, followed to it's extreme would absolve every person involved in those atrocities, leaving just Hitler as the only person who could be found guilty (as he took orders from no one)! .
Popular opinion for some time after the end of the Second World War was that there was something in the German character that made them particularly cruel. I questioned this dispositional view of the German character. It would follow from this, that most people, regardless of nationality, would perform cruel acts upon another, under certain situations, of course!. Well the defence for many of the war criminals was that they had been just following orders. that's why i thought that people could commit atrocities when they are given orders by somebody in authority.
I tested my hypothesis by using a laboratory experiment. The subjects were chosen from volunteers who had responded to a newspaper article.
The volunteers were paid to participate in the experiment. One of my experimenters made it quite clear that they were paid the money just for appearing at the laboratory, and they were free to leave at anytime without forfeiting the money. Having said this though, the experimenter did not remind the subjects of their right to leave. Later in the experiment the subjects were to be told by the experimenter the exact opposite "You have no choice, you must go on".
The volunteers were told that this was an experiment into the effects of punishment upon learning. So at the beginning of the experiment the real volunteer is introduced to another 'subject' (really the victim was working for me). It is explained that one needs to be the teacher and the other the learner (or victim). A draw is fixed so that the real subject plays the part of the teacher. The victim was strapped into a chair. His wrists were covered with an electrode paste, and electrodes were placed upon the paste. The subject (teacher) is left in no doubt that the learner (victim) can not escape receiving electric shocks. Then the volunteer is taken into an adjoining room and shown the 'shock generator'. volunteer is led to believe that that machine can deliver shocks from 15 volts through to 450 volts to the victim, when really it produces nothing except an impressive electrical noise. The 'shock generator' has a switch for every voltage between 15 and 450 volts increasing in steps of 15 volts. Each switch is labelled, so as to give an impression of how severe the shock is (for example, 'danger: severe shock'). The volunteer was offered a real sample shock of 45 volts . All to convince the teacher that he was really giving shocks to the subject. The instructions were simple. The teacher reads a list of word pairs. The learner has to learn these. The teacher then tests the learner by giving him one of the words in a pair. The learner has to select the given word's paired word from four alternatives given by the teacher. If the learner gets an answer wrong, then he is administered a shock that is 15 volts higher than the voltage of the last shock delivered.
The victim gives responses after each question, until the 300 volt shock. At this point pounding on the wall is heard and there's not response to the question received. As could be expected subjects turned to the experimenter for guidance at this point. My experimenter instructs the teacher to treat the absence of a response as an incorrect answer. At higher voltages the victim gives no response, giving the impression that he is at the very least unconscious, and at the worse dead! Naturally, subjects will turn to the experimenter for guidance again, before administering shocks of greater than 300 volts. The experimenter just order to the volunteer to continue. If the teacher pointed out that it would seem the learner wanted to withdraw from the experiment, the experimenter just insisted to go on until the victim has learned all the word pairs correctly. The experiment would end either when the 450-volt shock had been administered, or when the subject walked out.
Many subjects became extremely nervous. Evidence for this was sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting lips, digging fingernails into their flesh. Fourteen subjects demonstrated nervous laughter. In short, although many subjects administered shocks up to 450 volts, they experienced acute stress. It was very interesting to draw a parallel with the Nazi execution squads, who were given extra rations of alcohol, presumably to counter the stress that their terrible acts produced within themselves.
that's how i concluded that Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become really clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with their morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority
http://www.garysturt.free-online.co.uk/milgram.htm
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