Milgram experiment

The Milgram experiment was a famous scientific experiment of social psychology. The experiment was first described by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University in an article titled Behavioral Study of Obedience published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in 1963, and later summarized in his 1974 book “ Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View”. It was intended to measure the willingness of a participant to obey an authority who instructs the participant to do something that may conflict with the participant's personal conscience.

The experiments began in July 1961, a year after the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiment to answer the question "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?"

Milgram summed up in the article "The Perils of Obedience", writing: "The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation."

The method of Milgram's original experiment was as follows:

Participants were recruited via a newspaper ad and direct mail solicitation, for work in a "study of memory" at Yale. The experiment was advertised as taking one hour, for which those responding would be paid $4.50. Participants were men between the ages of 20 and 50, coming from all educational backgrounds from an elementary school dropout to participants with doctoral degrees.

The participant and a confederate (an actor pretending to be another participant) are told by the experimenter that they will be participating in an experiment to test the effects of punishment on learning behavior.

A slip of paper is given to the participant, another to the confederate. The participant is led to believe that one of the slips says "learner" and one says "teacher" and that he is randomly given one of the slips. The actor claims to have been assigned as "learner," so the participant is led to believe that the roles have been chosen randomly. In actuality both slips say "teacher," while the actor just misreports what is on his slip; no element of randomness is involved.

The participant chosen as the teacher is given a sample 45-volt electric shock from the electro-shock generator, as a "sample" of the shock the "learner" will supposedly receive during the experiment. The "teacher" is then given a list of word pairs which he is to teach the learner. The teacher begins by reading off a list of word pairs to the learner. After reading through the word pairs, the teacher will then only read the first half of the word pairs, and read 4 possible answers. The learner will indicate which second word he believes to be correct by pressing a button (1 through 4) corresponding to the teacher's choices. If incorrect, the learner will receive a shock, increasing by 15 volts with each wrong answer. If correct, the next word pair is read.

The teacher believes that he is actually giving shocks to the learner participant. In reality, there are no shocks being given to the learner. Once the learner was separated, the learner set up a tape recorder, integrated with the electro-shock generator, which would play pre-recorded tracks at certain shock levels. At 135 volts the learner's pre-recorded pleas of agony begin. After a certain number of level increases, the actor starts to bang on the wall that separates him from the teacher (subject). After banging on the wall and complaining of his heart condition (which he talked about at the beginning of the experiment), the learner gives no further response to the questions and no further complaints.

Milgram created a documentary film showing the experiment and its results, titled "Obedience", legitimate copies of which are hard to find today. He also produced a series of five other films on social psychology with Harry From, some of which touched on his experiments. They may all be obtained from Penn State Media Services.

Before the experiment was conducted Milgram polled fellow psychologists as to what the results would be. They unanimously believed that only a few sadists would be prepared to give the maximum voltage.

In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent of experimental participants administered the experiment's final 450-volt shock, though many were quite uncomfortable in doing so. No participant stopped before the 300-volt level.

Reactions

The experiment raised questions about the ethics of scientific experimentation itself because of the extreme emotional stress suffered by the participants (even though it could be said that this stress was brought on by their own free actions). Most modern scientists would consider the experiment unethical today, though it resulted in valuable insights into human psychology.

In Milgram's defense, 84 percent of former participants surveyed later said they were "glad" or "very glad" to have participated and 15 percent chose neutral (92% of all former participants responding)..

Why so many former participants reported they were "glad" to have been involved despite the apparent levels of stress, one participant explained to Milgram in correspondence six years after he participated in the experiment, during the height of the Vietnam War: "While I was a subject [participant] in 1964, though I believed that I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so. Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority. ... To permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority's demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself. ... I am fully prepared to go to jail if I am not granted Conscientious Objector status. Indeed, it is the only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only hope is that members of my board act equally according to their conscience..."

In contrast to the life-changing experience reported by some former participants, however, participants were not fully debriefed by modern standards and many seemed to never fully understand the nature of the experiment according to exit interviews.

Тема: “Interpersonal Attraction”

Цель:

1. Тренировка навыков чтения текстов по специальности «Психология»

2. Формирование умений литературного перевода с английского на русский язык

3. Усвоение терминологии по теме

4. Подготовка к устному обсуждению проблем, изложенных в текстах Д.Карнеги

Этапы работы:

1. Выберите один из трех текстов Д.Карнеги, который наиболее соответствует вашим профессиональным интересам

2. Внимательно прочитайте текст, используя словарь, представленный после текста

3. Выполните письменно послетекстовые упражнения, представленные в задании

4. Обратите внимание на психологические термины

5. Подготовьтесь к устному обсуждению проблем, изложенных в тексте.

Text 1. A Simple Way to Make a Good First Impression

by Dale Carnegie

At a dinner party in New York, one of the guests, a woman who had inherited money, was eager to make a pleasing impression on everyone. She had squandered a modest fortune on sables, diamonds and pearls. But she hadn't done anything whatever about her face. It radiated sourness and selfishness. She didn't realize what everyone knows: namely, that the expression one wears on one's face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one's back.

Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, "I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you."

That is why dogs make such a hit. They are so glad to see us that they almost jump out of their skin. So, naturally, we are glad to see them.

A baby's smile has the same effect.

Professor James V. McConnell, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, expressed his feeling about a smile. "People who smile", he said, "tend to manage, teach and sell more effectively, and to raise happier children. There's far more information in a smile than in a frown. That's why encouragement is a much more effective teaching device than punishment."

The employment manager of a large New York department store told me she would rather hire a sales clerk who hadn't finished grade school, if he or she has a pleasant smile, than to hire a doctor of philosophy with a somber face.

The effect of a smile is powerful — even when it is unseen. Telephone companies throughout the United States have a program called "phone power" which is offered to employees who use the telephone for selling their services or products. In this program they suggest that you smile when talking on the phone. Your "smile" comes through in your voice.

Your smile is a messenger of your good will. Your smile brightens the lives of all who see it. To someone who has seen a dozen people frown, scowl or turn their faces away, your smile is like the sun breaking through the clouds. Especially when that someone is under pressure from his bosses, his customers, his teachers or parents or children, a smile can help him realize that all is not hopeless -that there is joy in the world.

Some years ago, a department store in New York City, in recognition of the pressures its sales clerks were under during the Christmas rush, presented the readers of its advertisements with the following homely philosophy: The Value of a Smile at Christmas:

It costs nothing, but creates much.

It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give.

It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends.

It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and Nature's best antidote for trouble.

Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anybody till it is given away.

And if in the last-minute rush of Christmas buying some of our salespeople be too tired to give you a smile, may we ask you to leave one of yours?

For nobody needs a smile so much as those who have none left to give.

]