Milgram wanted to investigate whether Germans were more obedient to authority figures than other nationalities. For example, during the Nuremberg trials, Nazi the main defense argument given by Nazis on trial for the killings in the World War 2, was “I was following orders”. Milgram selected volunteers for his experiment by advertising for male participants at Yale University. The procedure was that the participant got paired with another person and they drew straws to find out who would be the “learner” and who …show more content…
Psychologists predicted that only 1% would go all the way to 450 volts. This is outrageous, but 90% went all the way. Milligram did more than one experiment and all he did was changed the situation to see how this affected obedience. I honestly though only less than few would go all the way, but I guess I'm wrong. I guess the theory is true, humans can be are really cruel.
The criticism from the Milgram study is that this experiment can cause serious stress. Participants are exposed to extremely stressful situations that can cause signs of sweating, stuttering, and biting lips. Milgram made a comment that sign of stress would be short time. Once the experiment was done the administer would say that the learner is okay. That made the teacher feel relief and stress levels decreased. After a year of the experiment, the participants were thrilled that they had taken part of the experiment.
Ordinary people are more likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing innocent people. We obey authority because of he the way we they are brought up to. People tend to obey orders from other people if they look like an authority figure because they are viewed as morally right/ or legally based. Authority is learned from a variety of situations, for example in the family, school, and