Saturday, January 22, 2011

A replication of Milgram's experiments


Jerry Burger, a psychology professor at Santa Clara University, conducted a partial replication of the Milgram’s experiment we discussed in class yesterday. Seventy adults participated in the study up to the point where they first heard the learner’s verbal complaints (150 volts). The obedience rates were only slightly lower than those obtained by Milgram 40 years earlier. This research was featured in ABC News’ Primetime.

For those of you who missed class yesterday, you can watch the original experiment below:


4 comments:

  1. While I watched this section of the film I thought at first that this guy was perhaps a little compassionate, he seemed like he wanted to stop and the "victim" was screaming his lungs off. However, this man's obediance surpassed his compassionate emotion and he continued the experiment. In my opinion, if someone was screaming their lungs off and I was aware that this person had heart problems, I would not have made it to 450W. I don't believe this act was done intentionally, but I believe the man was just ignorant and confused about the entire situation. Ignorant because he obvioulsy did not know it was an experiment testing his obedience and confused because though he wanted to stop, the "authoritative" figure that was inside the room kept saying he is fully responsible and this is why he continued. I also wanted to add that i believe he continued also because he most likely was aware that this experiment was done before and if no deaths were recorded, why should he worry?

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  2. In my opinion, intimidation was the main factor in this experiment. I’m sure everyone would say that they wouldn’t even go past 100volts when in the “shockers” shoes. But I’ll be honest, if I was involved in this experiment and was being told by a man who looks like a doctor or professor or something, I’ll probably be a little intimidated.

    Watching the video, all I could think of was a hero. A hero is someone who usually does an act or makes a decision that many other people wouldn’t do. Many people would be afraid to go against authority or the norm, but a hero follows his or her own heart. Maybe the norm or the higher authority isn’t right, and everyone remembers the person who stood up against them to make the right or ethical decision.

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  3. When considering Milgram's experiment I think it is an oversimplification to credit the fully-compliant participants as being cowardly or of weak character. As the readings have suggested, the idea of predisposed characteristics is an issue of debate in itself, and perhaps the participants would have acted differently given any number possible factors were different, in that case the situationalist argument has more to its claim. Milgram’s experiment reminded me of another study that I have read, “Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development.” In it the following dilemma is presented to the study participants:
    Heinz Steals the Drug
    In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug-for his wife. Should the husband have done that? (Kohlberg, 1963, p. 19)

    According to the nature of their answers, Kohlberg categorized the them into six “Stages of Moral Development.” To generalize, the first stage consisted of answers that consist of reasoning that does not go beyond the scope of permission and punishment by authority. Stage Two is similar to Stage One in that it considers punishment and consequences, but it does not necessarily acknowledge the authority figure as the sole dictator of right and wrong merely the one who enforces it. This is where I believe the subject in the video we saw in class belongs. Because he preceded with his actions although he was worried, it only took the constant reassurance of the imposed authority figure for the subject to continue when he felt anxiety for his actions. Because this stage of Moral Development calls for authority to set the parameters for right and wrong, and because the subject continued when he was told he was not liable it is reasonable to say that the subject was concerned with his self-interests and did question act on the question of the morality of the authority’s directions. He did not consider the implications of such things in the realm of being a member of a larger society but rather in terms of individual consequence. In higher levels of Moral Development described there is needed more consideration for relationships, a respect for maintaining social order, individual rights, and principles transcending all previously mentioned considerations.
    To summarize, I do not believe subjects who proceeded to continue past expectations are necessarily wrong, they may simply not think in the same moral scope that an outsider may consider correct to identify right from wrong. A larger, better written summary of Kohlberg’s study is located here: http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/kohlberg.htm

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  4. Interestingly, Kohlberg was Milgram's colleague at Yale in the 1970s and conducted a study on Milgram disobedients. And Kohlberg found that disobedient subjects of the Milgram experiments were at higher levels of moral development than the subjects who obeyed the orders of the experimenter.
    Good comments, guys!

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