In 1961, Stanley Milgram conducted his famous but socially outrageous experiment on submission to authority.
This experiment was carried out under the influence of the trial of the Nazi war criminal Eichmann, who, among other crimes, was accused of having killed millions of Jews on his orders. driving the conveyor of death, he was just doing his job and following orders.
After this process, Stanley Milgrem decided to conduct his famous study of the banality of evil. He was interested in how easily ordinary people, obeying an order, are ready to do terrible things, motivating it with a good purpose.
Experiment Description
This experiment was presented to the participants as a study of the effect of pain on memory. The experiment involved the experimenter and two more people - "teacher" and "student". The "student" had to memorize a couple of words from a long list until he remembered them, and the "teacher" had to check his memory and punish him for every mistake with an ever stronger electric shock.
Participants in Stanley Milgram's experiment.
The "student" was the invited actor, but the "teacher" did not know about this and thought that in front of him was exactly the same volunteer as himself
Promotional video:
The "student" was tied to a chair with electrodes, and the "teacher" went into another room. He began to give the "student" simple memorization tasks and, with every mistake, he pressed a button, supposedly punishing the "student" with an electric shock (in fact, the actor playing the "student" only pretended to be hit). Starting at 45 V, the "teacher" with each new error had to increase the voltage by 15 V up to 450 V.
At 150 volts, the "student" actor began to demand that the experiment be stopped. But the experimenter insisted and the experiment continued. As the tension increased, the actor acted out more and more discomfort, then intense pain, and finally yelled to stop the experiment.
If the "teacher" showed hesitation, the experimenter assured him that he took full responsibility for both the experiment and the safety of the "student" and that the experiment should be continued. At the same time, however, the experimenter did not threaten the doubting "teachers" in any way and did not promise any reward for participating in this experiment.
results
The results astounded everyone, including Milgram himself. 26 "teachers" out of 40, instead of taking pity on the victim, continued to increase the voltage (up to 450 V) until the researcher gave the order to end the experiment.
Even more alarming was the fact that almost none of the 40 participants in the experiment refused to play the role of "teacher" when the "student" was just beginning to demand release. They did not do this even later, when the victim began to beg for mercy.
Moreover, even when the “student” responded to each electrical discharge with a desperate cry, the test subjects, “teachers,” continued to press the button. None of them stopped until the voltage of 300 V, when the victim began to scream in despair: "I can no longer answer questions!"
The overall result was as follows: none stopped before 300 V, five refused to obey only after this level, four - after 315 V, two after 330 V, one after 345 V, one after 360 V and one after 375 V; the remaining 26 out of 40 reached the end of the scale.
Milgram began his experiments to find out how German citizens during the Nazi years could participate in the extermination of millions of innocent people in concentration camps. He planned to conduct his experiments in Germany, whose inhabitants, he believed, were prone to obedience.
However, the very first experiment, conducted in New Haven, Connecticut, showed that a trip to Germany was unnecessary. "I have found so much obedience," said the scientist, "that I see no need to conduct this experiment in Germany." There is a certain percentage of people among any nation who are ready to inflict pain, suffering and death not only on a foreigner, but also on their compatriot."
The results of Milgram's experiment were so shocking that codes of ethics were developed to make it impossible to completely reconstruct it.
But in 2008, Jerry Berger of Santa Clara University in the United States nevertheless reproduced Milgram's experiment, modifying its conditions to take into account existing restrictions. As it turned out, little has changed in 25 years: out of 40 subjects, 28 (that is, 70%) were ready to continue to increase the voltage and after the "student", allegedly having received a 150-volt shock, complained of heart.
Milgram's experiment showed how deeply rooted in us the consciousness of the need to obey authority. Most ordinary people, as a rule, are so prone to submission to a figure endowed with power that they are capable of extreme cruelty towards other people, towards whom they have neither anger nor hatred.
Of course, not all submission includes acts of aggression against others. Submission is a basic component in the structure of social life, and the very life of society is predetermined by the existence of subordination.
A system of power is needed in any society. However, submission can serve both noble and educational purposes, charity and creation, and lead to destruction.
Author: Viktorya Nekrasova