Jerry M Burger's replication in 2009 of Stanley Milgram's Obedience study (1963, 1965 and 1974) specifically experiment 5, attempted to recreate this controversial and influential research whilst avoiding the ethical issues that the original study brought into play. How close was this to the original? What are the parts of the original that Burger was unable to recreate? Did these alterations effect the results when compared to Milgram's? What follows is my selection and explanation of key similarity’s, those components of Burger's that match Milgram's, and major differences, where Burger's replication deviated from Milgram's methods.
One of the differences that stands out is at the very beginning of Burgers replication process. Burger's
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The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Burger 2006 citing Davis, 1983) the was to establish the participants level of empathy towards others in duress, Burger intended to see if there was any correlation between those that stopped the experiment short and there score on the empathy scale. Furthermore the applicants completed the Desirability of Control Scale (Burger & Cooper, 1979) this scale isolated a particular personality trait, the desire for an individual to feel in control of any given situation, Burger intended to search for parallels between participants actions during the experiment in relation to there score on this scale, would they be more likely to resist the influence of the experimenter if they produced a high score on the inventory. So we see that in using these scales all of which were developed after the original experiment by Milgram, Burger has started his replication with some significant alterations before the experiment proper has …show more content…
It is here again that Burger deviates from Milgram's methods although ultimately this was due to necessity. Participants in the original were instructed to administer shocks if the learner in the adjacent room could not correctly answer questions relating to the fake study on memory and punishment. They were unaware that no shocks were actually being administered. The device used to administer the shocks started at 15 volts and then each subsequent switch increased the voltage by increments of 15 up to and including 450 volts. The stress exhibited by the participants in Migram's experiment and documented by Milgram himself once published (Milgram,1974) caused outrage raising significant ethical issues in regards to the rights of those taking part in relation to The Nuremberg Code of ethics (Nicola Brace and Jovan Byford, 2012). Despite its critics Milgram's experiment was deemed as not breaching the code however if an attempt were made to replicate Milgram's experiment to its natural conclusion today (persuading participants to administer the full 450 volts) it would fail to meet the contemporary safeguards in place to protect the rights of the participant. Burger's solution was simple, the tipping point in the original experiment was reached at the
This Milgram research on respect to authority figures was a series of cultural science experiments conducted by Yale University scientist Stanley Milgram in 1961. They assessed the willingness of survey participants, men from a different variety of jobs with varying degrees of training, to obey the authority figure who taught them to do acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Participants were led to think that they were helping an unrelated research, in which they had to distribute electrical shocks to the individual. These fake electrical shocks gradually increased to grades that could have been deadly had they been true. McLeod's article about the Milgram experiment exposed the fact that a high percentage of ordinary people will
In the video of the Stanley Milgram Experiment People were given roles as teachers and students. The students had been hooked up to an electrical system were they had been received questions and whenever they had answered incorrectly they received a dosage of electricity and got progressively got stronger each time they were wrong. At a certain point the student stopped responding to pain and the scientist had kept making them give a voltage. Some People discontinued the experiment.
Milgram’s experiment, that tricks subjects into believing that they have killed someone of their own free will, seems to point to the fact that a situation has the larger effect on how someone acts, than their personality. Slater writes that Milgram agreed with this and that he believed that any normal person could be commanded to do any number of terrible things if put into the right situation (32). An astounding 65 percent of the people put into that said
Within 24 hours of the experiment, the prison guards began to humiliate and mentally abuse the prisoners. The prison guards were given little instructions about how to treat the prisoners, except that there was not to be any physical force used on the prisoners. The lack of instructions that
In the experiment, Milgram uses purposeful deception as the teacher is the naive subject and is told they are participating in a memory and learner psychology experiment and are in charge of delivering shocks to the learner, who, in fact, is an actor. The majority of the participants in the study were obedient to the experimenter even though the experimenter "did not threaten the subjects with punishments such as loss of income, community ostracism or jail for failure to obey. Neither could he offer incentives" (Milgram 651). Despite having nothing to gain, the subjects continued participating in the experiment. The participants continued to administer shocks to the student because they were instructed to
His experiment was used to demonstrate how people respond to orders from people with authority no matter what the order was. He started by having participants test another “participant”, who actually was one of Milgram’s men who knew what was going on. Each time the fake participant chose the wrong answer, the real participant had to shock them with a higher voltage until they got to one that would be deadly. Milgram changed parts of the experiment to find variables that changed how far the real participant would go. He noticed that location and experimenter’s dress apparel changes how likely it is that the real participant would go to the deadly voltage.
There are many ways to find out how individuals would react in certain situations, for example, by putting individuals in a simulation. Causing stress and discomfort to individuals in order to gain knowledge is at times necessary. For example, Stanley Milgram’s experiments which focus on obedience to authority and the extent a person is willing to ignore their own ethical beliefs and cause pain to another individual, just because he is ordered to do so. Stanley Milgram writes about his experiments and results in his article “The Perils of Obedience”. In his experiments Stanley Milgram causes subjects who have volunteered to be a part of them some stress and discomfort in order to receive relevant results.
“The Perils of Obedience”, written by Stanley Milgram in 1973, explores how her experiment demonstrated people’s affinity to obey orders even if it means someone will get hurt. Milgram is a leading social psychologist who disproved previously considered notions about obedience and authority. Her work demonstrates how obedience trumps morality and gives support for this phenomena with examples from history. By using different participants’ reactions, the author is able to analyze the meaning behind the experiment.
Methods: Milgram’s was at the Harvard University and it was conducted with men ranging in various ages and social statues. They were to be told what to do, how to do it, and to keep on going because the experiment asked for it. Learned Helplessness was about the same as Milgram’s experiment, but it was just to show that shocks for bad behavior could have negative repercussions. It completely stopped the dog from having any type of motivation to do anything.
(Russell 2014) Conclusion: Despite controversy Milgram’s experiment was ground breaking. It remains relevant today and is frequently cited in demonstrating the perils of obedience.
During the 1960’s Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments to test how a person reacts to authority. He started these tests in response to World War Two and the reports of the German soldiers who claimed they were “just following orders’ when asked about
The Milgram experiment was conducted to analyze obedience to authority figures. The experiment was conducted on men from varying ages and varying levels of education. The participants were told that they would be teaching other participants to memorize a pair of words. They believed that this was an experiment that was being conducted to measure the effect that punishment has on learning, because of this they were told they had to electric shock the learner every time that they answered a question wrong. The experiment then sought out to measure with what willingness the participants obeyed the authority figure, even when they were instructed to commit actions which they seemed uncomfortable with.
Name : Muhammed Irshad Madonna ID : 250509 Subject : Medical Ethics Due Date : 8/01/2018 Paper : 1-The Milgram Experiment The Stanley Milgram Experiment is a famous study about obedience in psychology which has been carried out by a Psychologist at the Yale University named, Stanley Milgram. He conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. In July 1961 the experiment was started for researching that how long a person can harm another person by obeying an instructor.
His experiment was all a hoax. The shock machine was fake. All he wanted was to know how many people would be obedient and how many would be defiant. Much to Milgram’s surprise sixty-five percent of people did what were told of them, and only thirty-five percent were
The people who participated in this experiment, were aware that they were killing someone. His finding included that normal people who were influenced by a person of authority obey the command they were given. It was very easy for the teachers to push the buttons when they were under pressure. Just like the Nazi’s did when Hitler gave them