"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
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In his book‚ Saint Benedict really stresses the rule of Obedience. Now‚ Benedict’s definition of obedience‚ is different than our definition of obedience. Many people in today’s society think of obedience as doing what you are told‚ even if you do not agree with it. Humans want freedom and do not want people telling them what to do. Saint Benedict’s view of obedience is much different‚ and many humans still practice his form of obedience in their lives today. Saint Benedict believes that a person
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people view just authority figures. These scholars have described group mind and its effects on society and authority in different ways. For example‚ Lessing‚ the author of “Group Minds‚” says it is dangerous for us to misunderstand our human tendency to conform because we can be blindly obedient as a result. Brooks‚ the author of “The Follower Problem‚” contends that it is an issue that many in today’s society conform to the idea that we should automatically distrust any authority figure. On the other
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fundamental characters being frequently ethical in nature‚ and morality often viewed as a derivative of religion. However‚ the relationship is not as clear cut as many people would like you to believe. A very old and important dilemma facing this relationship is the Euthyphro dilemma‚ discussed in Plato’s Euthyphro. In it‚ Socrates and Euthyphro argue about the nature of morality outside of a court. Socrates is being prosecuted for impiety‚ while Euthyphro is charging his father with murder. Although charging
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Authority – the word alone instills a certain type of reaction in a person; a reaction that either commands obedience or disobedience. Some people command authority through violent means while others through lawful means. Why do certain countries still have kings and queens while others are ruled by parliaments or congresses? When studying the German sociologists Max Weber and his theory of authority‚ it can be observed that there are certain types of authority and reasons in which people choose
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An obedience experiment directed by Milgram (1974) involved the participant in a laboratory environment as the role of a teacher‚ pertaining to the effects of punishment on learning (Gibson 2011). Participants were deceived by being told that as part of the experiment they were required to administer an electric shock to the ‘learner’. The participants’ had observed the ‘learners’ (who were confederate in the experiment) in an adjoining room being secured to a chair. The participants were informed
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The Euthyphro Dilemma When assessing the nature of morality‚ one must determine the reasons for believing certain actions to be right or wrong. In the following paragraphs I am going to explain what The Euthyphro Dilemma is and the threat that each of its horns imposes. Then I will defend The Divine Command Theory against these objections and demonstrate how it not only survives the two horns‚ but is also the stronger position to assume. In the Euthyphro‚ Socrates asks the age old question about
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IB Psychology (HL) Krissy Gear Milgram’s Experiment on Obedience P. 3 July 1961‚ Yale University Psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment to test peoples’ obedience to authority figures. He wanted to see how many people would comply or resist commands by (an idea of) an authority figure. Milgram’s experiment began with two men about twenty to fifty years in age. The participants volunteered through an advertisement and a promise of $4.50 for their
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In "The Perils of Obedience‚" Stanley Milgram conducted a study that tests the conflict between obeying immoral commands given by authority and refusing authority. The experiment was to see how much pain a normal person would inflict on another person because he/she were being ordered to do so by a scientist. The participants of this experiment included two willing individuals: a teacher and a learner. The teacher was the real subject and the learner was an actor. In almost all case the teacher would
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“destructive obedience”. Milgram’s interest in researching “destructive obedience” came from the Holocaust. “Obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose”. Milgram’s experiment proposed that the murder of innocent people occurred because of the obedience from the soldiers to their leader. The experiment focuses on analyzing on why the degree of obedience from each subject varies from their actions. Milgram’s experiment makes it transparent that obedience is a
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