Stanley Milgram's The Perils Of Obedience
"The Perils of Obedience" was written by Stanley Milgram in 1974. In the essay he describes his experiments on obedience to authority. I feel as though this is a great psychology essay and will be used in psychology 101 classes for generations to come. The essay describes how people are willing to do almost anything that they are told no matter how immoral the action is or how much pain it may cause. This essay even though it was written in 1974 is still used today because of its historical importance. The experiment attempts to figure out why the Nazi's followed Hitler. Even though what he told them to do was morally wrong and they did it anyway. If this essay can help figure out why Hitler was able to do what he was then able to do, then maybe psychologists can figure out how to prevent something like that from happening again. "The Perils of Obedience" is about an experiment that was made to test the obedience of ordinary people. There are two people who come and perform in the lab, one is the subject or the teacher and the other is an actor or the learner. The teacher doesn't know that the learner is an actor. They are there to see how far someone would go on causing someone pain just
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because they were told to do so the authority figure. The learner is given a list of word pairs and has to memorize them. Then he has to remember the second word of the pair when he hears the first word. If he is incorrect the "teacher" will shock him until he gets it right. Each time he is wrong the shock will get stronger. In reality, the actor receives no shock he is acting as though it is causing him pain and he tries to make is so the teacher wants to stop. In most cases the teacher would continue to apply the voltage up to 450 volts to the learner even though he continued not to answer. This essay was written almost perfectly. There are no flaws in my eyes there are only good things. It was written so that you felt like you were one of the administrators watching the experiment. It made everything in my eyes seem so real. If I had to write a story about an experiment or anything I would follow his essay as a guideline. He prepared the reader by giving them a little background then he explained the whole experiment basically step by step. If I had to recommend an essay for teachers to teach this would be first on my list. This essay was so well written that it actually interested me, even though I have only read 5 books in my life. Reading is not my favorite thing to do but if this essay was a book I would read it. I was so intrigued by the reality of it and the way that he made those "teachers" look so stupid and how he made the administrators realize how evil we humans can be. Following authority is most noticed when it comes to military.
Soldiers will do almost anything that their commander tells them. In a good way this is useful but when what they are doing is morally wrong there should be boundaries. But there are none and if they don't do what they are told then they have to face the punishment. But this is still different because they are trained to do whatever it takes to protect their nation no matter. However when a commander becomes corrupt they take advantage of the troops and use them for their own wrong doing. So there is a limit of when people should follow authority. Most people can tell when someone is corrupt but there are still those who think just because he is your commander it must be right so I have to do
it. This essay gives the best examples of how people are scared of authority that they would kill another person just because they were told to do so. This can help us to figure out why people actually do this and how can we stop something like Hitler and the Nazis from happening again. We should have another experiment similar to this to see if people have changed in 20 years. I think until we do that we can never truly get an understanding of how hard it is for someone not to follow the orders given to them. This essay has taught me that when I am told to do something that is not morally right then I should put a lot of thought into whether I should do it or not. This is important to me because I do not want to get caught up in the moment and do something that I will regret later in life.
because they were told to do so the authority figure. The learner is given a list of word pairs and has to memorize them. Then he has to remember the second word of the pair when he hears the first word. If he is incorrect the "teacher" will shock him until he gets it right. Each time he is wrong the shock will get stronger. In reality, the actor receives no shock he is acting as though it is causing him pain and he tries to make is so the teacher wants to stop. In most cases the teacher would continue to apply the voltage up to 450 volts to the learner even though he continued not to answer. This essay was written almost perfectly. There are no flaws in my eyes there are only good things. It was written so that you felt like you were one of the administrators watching the experiment. It made everything in my eyes seem so real. If I had to write a story about an experiment or anything I would follow his essay as a guideline. He prepared the reader by giving them a little background then he explained the whole experiment basically step by step. If I had to recommend an essay for teachers to teach this would be first on my list. This essay was so well written that it actually interested me, even though I have only read 5 books in my life. Reading is not my favorite thing to do but if this essay was a book I would read it. I was so intrigued by the reality of it and the way that he made those "teachers" look so stupid and how he made the administrators realize how evil we humans can be. Following authority is most noticed when it comes to military.
Soldiers will do almost anything that their commander tells them. In a good way this is useful but when what they are doing is morally wrong there should be boundaries. But there are none and if they don't do what they are told then they have to face the punishment. But this is still different because they are trained to do whatever it takes to protect their nation no matter. However when a commander becomes corrupt they take advantage of the troops and use them for their own wrong doing. So there is a limit of when people should follow authority. Most people can tell when someone is corrupt but there are still those who think just because he is your commander it must be right so I have to do
it. This essay gives the best examples of how people are scared of authority that they would kill another person just because they were told to do so. This can help us to figure out why people actually do this and how can we stop something like Hitler and the Nazis from happening again. We should have another experiment similar to this to see if people have changed in 20 years. I think until we do that we can never truly get an understanding of how hard it is for someone not to follow the orders given to them. This essay has taught me that when I am told to do something that is not morally right then I should put a lot of thought into whether I should do it or not. This is important to me because I do not want to get caught up in the moment and do something that I will regret later in life.