What did Milgram’s experiment taught us: Why do people listen to authority even when it’s wrong? – Life

Milgram’s experiment is psychological The experiment was held in the early 1960s, in the shadows of only the trials of Nazi in Nuremberg, this experiment opened the space for an unpleasant, but a necessity between ordinary man and accomplice in evil tanja than we want to believe.

Stanley Milgram, American Social Psychologist, asked a simple, but a shake, which measures are people willing to obey authority, even when that obedience causes damage to another man?

The experiment participated in the experiment seemingly ordinary citizens, who believed they participate in scientific research on learning and memory. They are divided into the roles of « teacher » and « students » – all the real respondents always played the role of teachers, while the student was an actor who had the task of simulating pain and suffering.

The task of the respondents was to ask questions to the student, and every time he would give the wrong answer, he should have been sentenced to electric shock. The appliance had a scale of 15 to 450 volts. In reality, shocks were not – but participants did not know that. Instead, they would hear the students’ screams, asks to interrupt, and even completely silence, suggesting that he lost consciousness or passed away.

Despite this, if they showed doubt or tried to stop, in the room would be announced a researcher, a cold-blooded tone in a white man, saying, « The experiment requires you to continue. » And most of her – she continued. More precisely, as much as 65% of respondents reached a maximum level of 450 volts, believing seriously injuring another person, and all on behalf of obedience to scientific authority.

What Milgram discovered was a psychological mechanism that acts frightening know: when we believe that responsibility is in another – authority, we will never make what in everyday circumstances would never. In this way, the moral dilemma moves from the personal frame in external. People stop behaving like individuals with their own beliefs and turn into executors.

Milgram’s experiment caused violent reactions and ethical debates. Some claimed that the participants were too upset, that the experiment crossed the limit allowed. And they were right – after Milgra, the rules in psychological research were significantly tightened. But the fact remains that the conclusions of this research are also equally relevant, especially in the world in which authorities – politically, religious, corporate – continue to demand blind loyalty.

Although Milgram’s experiment is more than 60 years old, his message is imperishable: obedience can be dangerous when separated from conscience. And the more we know the mechanisms leading us to obedience, we have a bigger chance to recognize them and that, when necessary, we are on the way.

Because sometimes the bravest act is – say « no ». Even when it means to oppose the authority.