Obedience to Authority
Stanley Milgram
Summary:
Chapter 1: The Dilemma of Obedience. Chapter one serves as an introduction to the book. Milgram discusses obedience, describing it as a basic and important element in the structure of social life. He also gives a brief introduction to the basics of his experiment, and the motivations behind it (Germany), and some of the results obtained from the experiment.
Chapter 2: Method of Inquiry. In chapter two, Milgram gives a detailed description of each component in the experiment. Participants were recruited from ads and mail advertising; they were required to be 'adults,' not high school or college students. He describes the learning task, which was the supposed objective of the experiment. Also, a detailed description of the shocking procedure and machines, as well as how the experiment would take place and evolve.
Chapter 3: Expected Behavior. In order to determine the expected behavior from people participating in the experiment, Milgram put together groups of people to whom he "explained" the procedures (he omitted the fact that the learner was an actor). Majority of people indicated or predicted that subjects would not go through the complete experiment, that they would stop when the learner indicated he wanted out of the experiment.
Chapter 4: Closeness of the Victim. Milgram describes different ideas that affected the variation of obedience depending on the proximity of the victim. Overall, if the victim was remote from the subject, the subject was more likely to go through the experiment than if the victim was in the same room with the experimenter and the subject.
Chapter 5: Individuals Confront Authority. In this chapter, Milgram discusses some forces that affect the subject's responses, such as background and interaction with the experimenter. He then continues to relate the accounts of various subjects participating in the experiments.
Chapter 6: Further Variation and Controls. Variations made from experiments 5-11 are described in this chapter: adding a heart condition to the victim, changing personnel (personality), how close the experimenter is to the subject, how women impact the experiment, the victim's limited contract; the institutional context (whether related to Yale or not), and whether the subject would give the same shocks if he had the option to choose the shock level.
Chapter 7: Individuals Confront Authority II. Chapter structure similar to chapter 5. Milgram describes the interactions and how the experiment proceeded with different people.
Chapter 8: Role Permutations. Milgram questions whether the role each individual plays and how it is played would affect subject responses. For example, the experimenter was always the authority, the teacher was the subject, while the learner was the victim. In experiments 12-16 variations to these roles were changed. Hierarchy in authority is very important in choosing which authority to follow.
Chapter 5: Individuals Confront Authority. In this chapter, Milgram discusses some forces that affect the subject's responses, such as background and interaction with the experimenter. He then continues to relate the accounts of various subjects participating in the experiments.
Chapter 6: Further Variation and Controls. Variations made from experiments 5-11 are described in this chapter: adding a heart condition to the victim, changing personnel (personality), how close the experimenter is to the subject, how women impact the experiment, the victim's limited contract; the institutional context (whether related to Yale or not), and whether the subject would give the same shocks if he had the option to choose the shock level.
Chapter 7: Individuals Confront Authority II. Chapter structure similar to chapter 5. Milgram describes the interactions and how the experiment proceeded with different people.
Chapter 8: Role Permutations. Milgram questions whether the role each individual plays and how it is played would affect subject responses. For example, the experimenter was always the authority, the teacher was the subject, while the learner was the victim. In experiments 12-16 variations to these roles were changed. Hierarchy in authority is very important in choosing which authority to follow.
Discussion: This book seems to be very easy to read. Since we had already read a chapter about his experiments in the Opening Skinner's Box book, I already had an idea what his experiments were about. There is so much detail about his reasoning behind the experiment, the methods he used for it, and results about it. I was really surprised to learn how they prepare for the experiment, how they came up with the expected results; it wasn't just from what they believe, but what society believes.The more he discussed the experiments the more I thought about myself, and what I would do in that situation.
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