The Stanley Obedience Study

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at how experimentation as a primary research method for determining human behavior is specifically utilized in psychologist Stanley Milgram's research on the nature of obedience among humans, popularly known as the "Behavioral Study of Obedience" and also known as the "Stanley Obedience Study". It analyzes the study in terms of its importance in studying the relationship between the individual and society, as well as critiques raised about the psychologist's research.

From the Paper:

"In order to better analyze Milgram's obedience study, specific details about the research must be noted. This study, conducted during the 1960s, was an experiment conducted in Yale University. The objective of the research was to determine at what conditions the subjects (units of analysis of the study) were more likely to develop destructive obedience. Thus, Milgram designed the experiment in such a way where the subjects under study were told to punish the victim (an accomplice) when s/he commits an error during the experiment. The activity that the subjects participate is a word-pair test, where errors committed by the victim/learner is correspondingly punished with electric shocks that increases in intensity as the victim increases his/her errors in the test. Through the experiment, Milgram concluded that "[m]ore people do what they are told to do as long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority" (Santrock, 2000:563)."

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• Term Paper # 101224 : "The Role of Human Obedience"

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