LAB ASSIGNMENT 1 1

Authority: The Control of Obedience

Nicholas Smith

Monday 3:00 pm Jen Peterson

September 13, 2010

LAB ASSIGNMENT 1 2

Authority: The Control of Obedience

In the history of psychological experiments, none has been so monumental as the one
performed by Yale University professor Stanley Milgram. Conducted in 1961, the results of the social
experiment still have ramifications in today’s modern society and nonetheless should be considered a
crucial step towards understanding the human mind.

Milgram’s experiment is an example of what we like to call simulated observation. This is a type
of procedural order that requires many controls that are imposed and also the control of the
participants that have been chosen/volunteered. In this case, the even that is being observed is also
usually a “simulation” of what might happen in a real life incidence, mainly to see predictable outcomes
but also strains from the norm. But this type also holds back in some ways, being that the real life
situation has other factors that become contingent and are not thought of during a controlled
environment, like this certain experiment is.

During this time period, the second greatest war our planet has ever faced is decades gone but
the mysteries and observations have still yet to cease. One major curiosity that many psychologists had
at the time was how Hitler’s reign gained much authority that they seem to have an army of mind-
controlled men that will do anything, ethnical or otherwise, at the mere command of a higher figure.
This is what Milgram set out to explain. Interesting enough, the experiments performed at Yale began
only 3 months the trial of Nazi War criminal Adolf Eichmann. Milgram was determined to figure out the
dependence of authority figures on the average individual and how far someone will go to be in
obedience to what they see as their higher self, or leader. Towards the end of his observations, Milgram
was both confirmed and surprised, in more ways than one.

Throughout the experiment, 40 men ages 20 to 50 years were put through the rigorous test of
memorization and one of the two men in every experiment had to be willing to shock the other
participant. The shocks ranged from simple 40 watts to an extreme and deadly 360 watts. Many of the
participants were pushing the bar when it came to the electronic shocks, surprisingly going farther than
any of the observers expected. Many of the so called “teachers” were ready to stop when the man
within the box started complaining of heart problems but were otherwise convinced the higher
authority of the psychologist performing the test. Even though they didn’t know that the shocks were
fake and the complaints were forged, many of the participants continued to perform the test at the
discretion of the observer because they felt obligated to continue, forgoing any moral sense of mind
that they had.