CarizzCruzem

AN EXPERIMENT TO DETERMINE IF ORDINARY CITIZENS WILL OBEY AUTHORITY AND INFLICT TORTURE

I. BACKGROUND

It was after World War II, Nazi war criminals were being tried in Nuremberg. Most of them reasoned that they had only followed orders.

Years after, during the Vietnam War, it was American soldiers’ turn to be accused of horrendous acts. They used the same defense as Nazi did.

II. BACKGROUND TO THE EXPERIMENT

Most people would say that following orders are never a sufficient reason to kill innocent civilians and thus destroy morale.

In accordance with this notion, Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist opposed. He went further than opposing and did, what has become a very controversial experiment, THE MILGRAM EXPERIMENT. He wanted to prove that even ordinary people who are just doing their job can be used to commit atrocities.

III. THE EXPERIMENT

An advertisement called for 40 adult male to volunteer for $4 an hour in an experiment. They were a collection of men of different background and with different jobs ranging from managerial to labor. They were told that the experiment’s purpose was to determine the effect of punishment in learning. In reality however, the experiment was to see up to what extent ordinary people would obey obvious unethical orders, though the volunteers were not told so until the experiment was done.

An experimenter and another “volunteer”, which turned out to be just an actor were part of the “experiment”. They conducted the experiment in two adjoining rooms connected by an intercom – the experimenter and the real volunteer in one, the actor in the other. The real volunteer was commanded to send electric shocks, increasing to 15 volts every time the actor answered a wrong answer.

The truth was there were no electric shocks sent and the answers, which were mostly wrong, were all taped recorded, even the pained protest, later became wild outcry, of the actor. At 375 volts, the actor became silent, supposing he was unconscious or dead because of his alleged heart problem. All these time, the experimenter would impel the volunteer to continue sending electric shocks if he had shown reluctance.

IV. PREDICTED RESULTS

Psychologists predicted that only 1% of the volunteers would carry on sending electric shocks up to 450 volts.

V. ACTUAL RESULTS

Among the 40 volunteers, 26 sent up to 450 volts electric shocks. The average maximum shock everyone else sent was 368 volts.

VI. CONCLUSION

Through the experiment, Stanley Milgram satisfied his theory that a high percentage of ordinary people would obey an authority, even if the commands were obviously devastating and in opposition to the accepted right and wrong of the general population, though not necessarily out of hostility, but because of a sense of obligation.

The team of Milgram’s experiment did an extensive debriefing after the experiment due to other psychologists’ awareness that the experiment might affect the volunteers negatively to an unwanted extent. They also did a follow-up, which shows that 84% were glad to have volunteered, 15% were neutral and 1.3% were regretful to have participated in the experiment.

There has been much controversy due to the nature of this experiment. In addition, the concern for securing the well being of the volunteers made THE MILGRAM EXPERIMENT less likely to be administered today.