If Hitler Asked You To Electrocute A Stranger Would You

Social structure can influence people to act against their own moral code such as in the cases of a manager and her fiancé ordering a teenage girl to strip and her following their commands, ordinary soldiers torturing prisoners, and normal male employees harassing their female coworkers. All of the listed cases demonstrate how difficult it is to violate an established social structure, even when following the social structure violates personal morals. Milgram’s findings, as read in the article “If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You?”, apply to the first case of a manager and her fiancé ordering a teenage girl to strip and her following their commands. Milgram’s data suggested that humans are obedient even to the extent of blindly following authority. His findings were demonstrated by his experimental subjects who continued to increase the voltage to electrocute the learner, despite the subject’s moral code conflicting with the idea of
Zimbardo’s mock prison experiment yielded the conclusion that individual behavior is largely under the control of social forces and environmental contingencies rather than personality traits, character, and will power. His findings were shown through the change in the pretend prison guards’ behavior over a matter of days. Their total demeanor was transformed and they became the role they were playing, with tyrannical and abusive actions towards the prisoners. The prison guards’ power went to their heads and corrupted them, much like what happened in the case of ordinary soldiers torturing prisoners. Like the prison guards, the soldiers were ordinary until they were put into a role of power. The environment of the prison with no structure or set rules changed the soldiers’ demeanors and caused them to throw their morals aside for limitless power over other human