Stanley Milgram's Social Psychological Experiments
In 1963, Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted a series of social psychology experiments to study the conditions under which the people are obedient to authorities and personal conscience. The purpose of his experiment was to determine whether or not people were particularly obedient to the higher authority who instructed them to perform various acts even if they violate their own morals and ethics. It was one of the most famous studies of obedience in psychology as it has inspired other researchers to explore what makes people question authority and more importantly, what leads them to follow orders. There were several replications of his experiment and the results were identical to those reported by Milgram about how
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most people behave in concrete situations. Now, Fifty years later, social pressure is still applicable in today’s contemporary society with people obeying authority when it goes against their morals. His experiment was performed in the Yale Interaction Laboratory with 40 males aged between 20 and 50 years recruited using newspaper advertising. To perform the experiment, participant chooses the role of "teacher," who is the real participant of the experiment. He has to speak a list of pairs for other participant and punish him by giving electric shocks of increasing intensity if he was not able to give correct answer. The “student” is the other participant who was simply an actor who has never being shocked but acts like he is. There is an “experimenter” who has to explain the purpose and procedure of effects of punishment on learning. The teacher and the learner remained in separate rooms, with student strapped into chair with an electode attached to his wrist which was further connected to the shock generator. The teacher had to punish the student each time he answered incorrectly from the shock generator containing thirty marked switched, ranging from 15 volts upto 450 volts. The result of his experiment was surprisingly impressive to everyone. He comes up with a result showing that sixty percent of ordinary people had agreed to obey an authority figure or 26 out of 40 participants administered upto 450 volt shock. Throughout the experiment, many of the participants were feeling uncomfortable and resisted continuing the experiment and even agreed to refund the money. After so many replications of his experiment the question that arises is, “Would people still obey?” The answer is yes. In the article “Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?” Jerry m. Burger said, “My partial replication of Milgram’s procedure suggests that average Americans react to this laboratory situation today much the way they did 45 years ago.” Although Burger’s experiment was not an exact replication, but it’s the same psychological phenomena as Milgram studied which was reasonable. At the end of the experiment, Burger was left with an obedience rate around the same as the one Milgram had recorded where 70% of subjects delivered the 150-volt shock, compared to 82.5% for Milgram. “The results didn’t surprise me,” he said, “but for years I had heard from my students and from other people, ‘Well, that was back in the 60s, and somehow how we’re more aware of the problems of blind obedience, and people have changed.’” Milgram’s experiment is still very relevant today, though. It is still discussed throughout many parts of the world because of the revolutionary and provocative discoveries he made. In today’s society many people have, throughout their life, been taught to obey a range of authority figures. However, one can apply Milgram's psychological theory to a case study, “The My Lai massacre” and to determine what influences the soldier to commit a war crime. The massacre took place on the16th of March 1968 and is by many perceived as being the darkest day in American military history in which between 347 to 519 civilians were slaughtered in the course of just four hours by American troops. The mission turned into a great massacre of harmless civilians. The houses and huts of the village were burned. Womens, small children and even unarmed old mens were shot. Everything that moved was killed. Their instructions by commanding officers were: "... kill every man, woman, child and animal in the village. Burn all the homes. nothing should be walking, growing or crawling." The two questions that arises and require more clarity are: what made some of the young American soldiers to kill so many innocent civilians on that day and why so few in the group try to save the lives of as many civilians as they could? Though obedience to authority has hurts and killed innocent people, but the lack of moral clarity is the bottom point of what happened in My Lai, Vietnam in 1968. In a specific incident during the My Lai massacre, Lieutenant Calley tells a group of soldiers guarding a group of huddled Vietnamese: “you know what to do?” One soldier replies “yes” taking for granted that they were to watch over the gathered prisoners.
Several minutes later Lieutenant Calley returns and says “How come they aren’t dead?” The soldiers then turn to kill them although some seemed apparently uncomfortable and unwilling to do so. The situation in which the soldiers are left alone with prisoners display a similar behavior as witnessed with Why My Lai 1st semester project 46 the subject in the above mentioned experiment. After leaving the soldiers alone with the orders to “take care of them” they show subtle sympathy towards the gathered prisoners in “sparing” their lives rather than shooting them right away. This of course can be interpreted in the individual soldiers’ sense of moral ethics towards his fellow man, but under the circumstances of this specific, somewhat chaotic and brutal event one could just as much assume they are meant to kill the prisoners instead of simply guarding them. Comparing this situation with the experiment we encounter a slight problem when taking the concept of consequence into consideration. For the participant in the experiment there was no immediate consequence in not being obedient to the experimenter and raising the shock level when required. However, for the soldiers in the mentioned situation, they faced an authority figure which during the massacre was known to be life threatening towards the soldiers if they did not do what was ordered. The results of the experiment and the mentioned example differ as we look closer at a situational perspective; nonetheless we see similarities of the two when looking at the result of the given order in the absence of authority. The soldiers involved in My Lai were all part of an institution larger and more powerful than any of those used in the Milgram
experiments, that is, the military. Soldiers in Vietnam faced life and death situations on almost a daily basis and had been conditioned through training, to follow the group and to obey orders in order to stay alive. The consequences of disobedience in the mind of a soldier in combat were far greater than that of a participant in one of Milgrams experiments. Not only does the military have the authority to actually punish disobedient soldiers, furthermore, soldiers in combat are left with little choice but to obey their superior officers and trust that they have the appropriate experience and judgement to keep the soldier alive. Even so, almost half of the participants in the Bridgeport experiment were still willing to obey an institution that they had never even heard of. The fact that 48% of Milgram’s participants were willing to obey an unknown firm, provides a better understanding of why so many soldiers were willing and ready to obey an extremely powerful institution - the same institution they had come to identify with and rely on to keep them alive. Finally, if we will compare Milgram’s experiment to the American soldiers in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, were people free of choice to kill the Vietnamese or were they obeying orders from authorities? In this case the soldiers didn’t think about harming the prisoners even though the situation they are in might have allowed them to do so. The soldiers at My Lai were in an environment conducive to obeying orders. They have been trained to follow the orders of their commanders; respect for authority is weighed heavily upon. It is hard for them to disobey because they have been integrated into the social structure of the military and when in the middle of a war they would have nowhere to turn if they chose to disobey the orders of their commanders. The presence of authority is an important factor when discussing the willingness of the soldiers to obey orders at My Lai. As we have seen in the example used earlier in the chapter when the authority was not physically present soldiers were less inclined to murder the innocent civilians.This incident supports Milgram’s theory that people do not have a destructive urge to harm others. When authority is present ordering what to do, it becomes almost impossible not to obey his commands. Human inclination to obedience to authority can override even the most basic morals. Under relatively safe circumstances, participants in Milgram’s experiments were ready to hurt another individual when ordered to do so. Thus, authority plays a big role in explaining why soldiers were willing to perform such atrocities as those committed during the My Lai massacre.
most people behave in concrete situations. Now, Fifty years later, social pressure is still applicable in today’s contemporary society with people obeying authority when it goes against their morals. His experiment was performed in the Yale Interaction Laboratory with 40 males aged between 20 and 50 years recruited using newspaper advertising. To perform the experiment, participant chooses the role of "teacher," who is the real participant of the experiment. He has to speak a list of pairs for other participant and punish him by giving electric shocks of increasing intensity if he was not able to give correct answer. The “student” is the other participant who was simply an actor who has never being shocked but acts like he is. There is an “experimenter” who has to explain the purpose and procedure of effects of punishment on learning. The teacher and the learner remained in separate rooms, with student strapped into chair with an electode attached to his wrist which was further connected to the shock generator. The teacher had to punish the student each time he answered incorrectly from the shock generator containing thirty marked switched, ranging from 15 volts upto 450 volts. The result of his experiment was surprisingly impressive to everyone. He comes up with a result showing that sixty percent of ordinary people had agreed to obey an authority figure or 26 out of 40 participants administered upto 450 volt shock. Throughout the experiment, many of the participants were feeling uncomfortable and resisted continuing the experiment and even agreed to refund the money. After so many replications of his experiment the question that arises is, “Would people still obey?” The answer is yes. In the article “Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?” Jerry m. Burger said, “My partial replication of Milgram’s procedure suggests that average Americans react to this laboratory situation today much the way they did 45 years ago.” Although Burger’s experiment was not an exact replication, but it’s the same psychological phenomena as Milgram studied which was reasonable. At the end of the experiment, Burger was left with an obedience rate around the same as the one Milgram had recorded where 70% of subjects delivered the 150-volt shock, compared to 82.5% for Milgram. “The results didn’t surprise me,” he said, “but for years I had heard from my students and from other people, ‘Well, that was back in the 60s, and somehow how we’re more aware of the problems of blind obedience, and people have changed.’” Milgram’s experiment is still very relevant today, though. It is still discussed throughout many parts of the world because of the revolutionary and provocative discoveries he made. In today’s society many people have, throughout their life, been taught to obey a range of authority figures. However, one can apply Milgram's psychological theory to a case study, “The My Lai massacre” and to determine what influences the soldier to commit a war crime. The massacre took place on the16th of March 1968 and is by many perceived as being the darkest day in American military history in which between 347 to 519 civilians were slaughtered in the course of just four hours by American troops. The mission turned into a great massacre of harmless civilians. The houses and huts of the village were burned. Womens, small children and even unarmed old mens were shot. Everything that moved was killed. Their instructions by commanding officers were: "... kill every man, woman, child and animal in the village. Burn all the homes. nothing should be walking, growing or crawling." The two questions that arises and require more clarity are: what made some of the young American soldiers to kill so many innocent civilians on that day and why so few in the group try to save the lives of as many civilians as they could? Though obedience to authority has hurts and killed innocent people, but the lack of moral clarity is the bottom point of what happened in My Lai, Vietnam in 1968. In a specific incident during the My Lai massacre, Lieutenant Calley tells a group of soldiers guarding a group of huddled Vietnamese: “you know what to do?” One soldier replies “yes” taking for granted that they were to watch over the gathered prisoners.
Several minutes later Lieutenant Calley returns and says “How come they aren’t dead?” The soldiers then turn to kill them although some seemed apparently uncomfortable and unwilling to do so. The situation in which the soldiers are left alone with prisoners display a similar behavior as witnessed with Why My Lai 1st semester project 46 the subject in the above mentioned experiment. After leaving the soldiers alone with the orders to “take care of them” they show subtle sympathy towards the gathered prisoners in “sparing” their lives rather than shooting them right away. This of course can be interpreted in the individual soldiers’ sense of moral ethics towards his fellow man, but under the circumstances of this specific, somewhat chaotic and brutal event one could just as much assume they are meant to kill the prisoners instead of simply guarding them. Comparing this situation with the experiment we encounter a slight problem when taking the concept of consequence into consideration. For the participant in the experiment there was no immediate consequence in not being obedient to the experimenter and raising the shock level when required. However, for the soldiers in the mentioned situation, they faced an authority figure which during the massacre was known to be life threatening towards the soldiers if they did not do what was ordered. The results of the experiment and the mentioned example differ as we look closer at a situational perspective; nonetheless we see similarities of the two when looking at the result of the given order in the absence of authority. The soldiers involved in My Lai were all part of an institution larger and more powerful than any of those used in the Milgram
experiments, that is, the military. Soldiers in Vietnam faced life and death situations on almost a daily basis and had been conditioned through training, to follow the group and to obey orders in order to stay alive. The consequences of disobedience in the mind of a soldier in combat were far greater than that of a participant in one of Milgrams experiments. Not only does the military have the authority to actually punish disobedient soldiers, furthermore, soldiers in combat are left with little choice but to obey their superior officers and trust that they have the appropriate experience and judgement to keep the soldier alive. Even so, almost half of the participants in the Bridgeport experiment were still willing to obey an institution that they had never even heard of. The fact that 48% of Milgram’s participants were willing to obey an unknown firm, provides a better understanding of why so many soldiers were willing and ready to obey an extremely powerful institution - the same institution they had come to identify with and rely on to keep them alive. Finally, if we will compare Milgram’s experiment to the American soldiers in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, were people free of choice to kill the Vietnamese or were they obeying orders from authorities? In this case the soldiers didn’t think about harming the prisoners even though the situation they are in might have allowed them to do so. The soldiers at My Lai were in an environment conducive to obeying orders. They have been trained to follow the orders of their commanders; respect for authority is weighed heavily upon. It is hard for them to disobey because they have been integrated into the social structure of the military and when in the middle of a war they would have nowhere to turn if they chose to disobey the orders of their commanders. The presence of authority is an important factor when discussing the willingness of the soldiers to obey orders at My Lai. As we have seen in the example used earlier in the chapter when the authority was not physically present soldiers were less inclined to murder the innocent civilians.This incident supports Milgram’s theory that people do not have a destructive urge to harm others. When authority is present ordering what to do, it becomes almost impossible not to obey his commands. Human inclination to obedience to authority can override even the most basic morals. Under relatively safe circumstances, participants in Milgram’s experiments were ready to hurt another individual when ordered to do so. Thus, authority plays a big role in explaining why soldiers were willing to perform such atrocities as those committed during the My Lai massacre.