Summary:
Chapter 1: The Dilemma of Obedience
This chapter talks about the meaning of obedience. It describes the experiment done to test the obedience of individuals. What was found was most people were very obedient when it came to shocking people even if they thought there was a lot of danger. This led to to the reasons behind the obedience. Such as, people don't feel responsible for their actions if they are being told to do something by a superior. An example used is the Nazi's in Germany.
Chapter 2: Method of Inquiry
The line between being obedient and disobedient is described at the beginning of this chapter. Recruits for this shock experiment were taken from the entire New Haven community. A wide variety of individuals responded and were used in the experiment. The rest of the chapter describes how the experiment was set up and conducted.
Chapter 3: Expected Behavior
This chapter provides results of what people would expect people to do when placed in the situation of shocking another. Most people want to view themselves in favorable light and do not think about other variables in an unknown social situation.
Chapter 4: Closeness of the Victim
The first experiment described has it setup where the subject cannot hear or see the person being shocked. 26 out of 40 people obeyed the instructor until the end of the experiment. The victim was then brought closer where they could be seen through a silvered glass. The victim was brought closer and closer from silvered glass, to vocal range, seeing range, same room, then they were asked to touch the person. The closer the victim the more disobedient people were.
Chapter 5: Individuals Confront Authority
The experiment's goal was to just see if an individual was obedient or disobedient. This chapter explains that it is important to note the comments and experiences of each individual because of the different variables they bring to the experiment. Several subjects are described in the rest of the chapter.
Chapter 6: Further Variations and Controls
A fifth experiment was explained where the lab the experiment was conducted in the basement of the lab at Yale. Milgram wanted to see if the less impressive lab in the basement had any effect on the outcome. The victim was also told to express concerns of having a small heart problem. The results concluded that these two new factors didn't have any conclusive effect on the outcome.
Experiment six checked to see if the appearance and personality of the experimenter and victim were a major factor. The roles were reversed and the results showed that it didn't really matter.
Experiment seven removed the experimenter from the room and gave orders by telephone. The results of this showed that this was a major effect on the situation. When orders were given over the phone people were not as obedient.
Experiment eight used women as subjects. The results were pretty much the same as men.
Experiment nine used a contract between the subject and victim. About half of the people still went to the end.
Experiment ten moved experiment sites to an office building in Bridgeport to have complete dissociation from Yale University. The obedience level was slightly lower but not significantly.
Experiment eleven allowed the subject to shock at any level they wanted to. Most of the subjects didn't go above the lowest level shock.
Chapter 7: Individuals Confront Authority II
This chapter describes the effect the experiment had on more individuals and what they thought.
Chapter 8: Role Permutations
Experiment twelve reversed the roles of the experimenter and the victim. The victim would demand to be shocked and the experimenter would plead for the subject not to do it. Every single subject listened to the experimenter and stopped when asked.
Experiment thirteen used what seemed to be ordinary men working together with the subject to do the experiment. The subject does the shocking but no shock level is specified. The experimenter gets a phone call and leaves the room. One of the ordinary men suggests that they increase the shock level every time a mistake is made. Most of the subjects broke with the ordinary man and didn't comply.
Experiment thirteen a happened when the subject refused to go along with the ordinary man. If the subject wouldn't do it then he was asked to switch places with the man. Most people refused to go along with it and took action against him.
Experiment fourteen puts the subject in a situation where he must shock the experimenter to prove to the victim that it is alright. Every subject stopped shocking when the experimenter cried for them to stop.
Experiment fifteen used two experimenters instead of one. These experimenters gave conflicting commands. Most people stopped when or close to when the argument started. Nobody took advantage of the opportunity to continue shocking until the end,
Experiment sixteen used two experimenters but one of them acted as the victim. This experiment showed that the experimenter in the chair did not fair any better than the original victim. He lost all of his power he had as an authority. People in this experiment either stopped when they were asked by the victim or kept going all the way like in the original experiment.
Discussion:
I was kind of amazed after reading this at how many different experiments were done. From reading in Opening Skinner's Box I knew about the experiment but had no idea it was done this many times with this many variations. So, it was cool to see what experiments were conducted and very interesting to see the results and how they changed the subjects actions.
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