Main content
MCAT
Course: MCAT > Unit 11
Lesson 7: Social psychology- Social psychology questions
- Conformity and groupthink
- Conformity and obedience
- Asch conformity studies (Asch line studies)
- Events that inspired the Milgram studies on obedience
- Milgram experiment on obedience
- What can we learn from the Milgram experiment
- Zimbardo prison study The Stanford prison experiment
- A closer look at the Stanford prison experiment
- Factors that influence obedience and conformity
- Bystander effect
- Social facilitation and social loafing
- Agents of socialization
- Socialization questions
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Events that inspired the Milgram studies on obedience
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Want to join the conversation?
- It wasn't just Eichmann who did it though. Most people had to comply or not care in order for the Holocaust to happen. Other bystander countries also refused to let refugees in.(5 votes)
- Can you do a video on Jerry Burger's (2009) Replication of Milgram's experiment?(2 votes)
- In case of army men in the battle field or on a mission.How do you advise them upon respecting milgram obedience?Because they are expected to follow "order from above"(2 votes)
- I love this bit about Milgram's background. He was obviously able to entertain counterfactuals and possibilities. 0:50Milgram was also influenced by strong legalism and procedural justice. 1:14
1960! immediately before the study.
Normal personality does not make a person normal.
If we look at what people have done...(1 vote) - "being a loyal follower eager to do one's duty". 2:49
This is of course normative conformity + identification [with the authority; with peers].
To which degree do we internalise these duties?
Depersonalisation and derealisation are important phenomenological processes.(0 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] One of the
most famous series of studies on conformity and obedience are what known as the Milgram Experiments,
and I wanna take a moment to talk about Milgram and the things that might've inspired him
to conduct these studies. The first thing that I wanna
note is that these studies began in 1961. And the reason that this is important is because Milgram's studies,
like many of the other studies on conformity and obedience were conducted in response to something, in this case, the atrocities
committed during the Holocaust. Milgram was born to a Jewish
family in 1933 in New York. And although he was born in the States, his parents had emigrated from Europe, and this is something
that he was very aware of. In fact, in one letter
that he wrote to a friend, he wrote, "I should have been born "into a German-speaking
Jewish community of Prague "and died in a gas chamber
some 20 years later. "How I came to be born
in a Bronx hospital, "I'll never quite understand." So even though he and his
immediate family weren't in Europe during World War II,
it's clear that he was still deeply affected by it. Another thing that seemed to
have a big influence on Milgram were the trials of Nazi leaders after the end of World War II. In particular, the trial of
Nazi-leader Adolf Eichmann seems to have been
particularly influential. Unlike other Nazi officers
who had been tried in the Nuremberg trials
immediately after War War II, Eichmann managed to
escape to South America, where he remained until he was captured by Nazi hunters in 1960. And really pay attention to this date because Eichmann was
captured and brought to trial and sentenced to death immediately before Milgram began his studies. But it's not just the timing of this trial that made it significant to Milgram, it was Eichmann himself. Because by all accounts, he was actually a pretty normal guy. He was ordinary. He seemed to have a normal personality. And he didn't seem to
have this intense hatred that was demonstrated by
the other Nazi leaders, and this is particularly puzzling in light of what Eichmann had done, which was to arrange
the deportation of Jews to death camps. And while he acknowledged
that he was the one who organized these deportations, he said that he didn't feel
guilty of the consequences. And years later, years after
the Milgram Experiments, Simon Wiesenthal, who was the Nazi hunter who captured Eichmann, stated that, "The world now understands the
concept of 'desk murderer.' "We know that one doesn't need
to be fanatical, sadistic, "or mentally ill to murder
millions, that it is enough "to be a loyal follower,
eager to do one's duty." And I think that it's that last part that really stood out to Milgram. Because Eichmann said the same thing, that not only other
Nazi officers had said, but also what just everyday
German people had said that they were just following orders. And in the end, I think that this is the idea that captured Milgram, the idea that everyday people when put into certain
situations could commit horrendous acts against
other human beings. And I think that Milgram
really wanted to find out if this was true. He wanted to know whether
everyday, average Americans could be made to follow
orders in the same way that the Nazi soldiers
claimed that they were doing. He wanted to see whether
or not they could be made to harm an innocent individual just because an authority
figure told them to. But I want you to take
a moment to think about how important this
research is because it was and is very easy to
depersonalize and other the individuals who see to be
complicit in the Holocaust. It is very easy to think
that they are evil, and we are good. And they are murderers, and we are moral. And as Milgram found
out, as we all found out, it really isn't that simple. And so with that in mind,
let's talk about his studies, the results of these studies,
why they are so controversial, and the impact that they
might have on us today.