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Analysis Of Stanley Milgram's The Perils Of Obedience

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In his article, "The Perils of Obedience", Stanley Milgram describes his experiment on obedience in everyday citizens. As the "teacher" in his experiment reads word pairs to the designated "learner", the teacher is further instructed by the experimenter in the back of the room to administer shocks of increasing strength every time a word is missed. Through the increasing levels of shock the experimenter can then hear the agonized screams of the learner who, in reality, is not actually being administered any amount of shock. Instead the voices heard are merely a recording, deceiving the teacher in order to study their reactions. The willingness of the teacher to continue was tested when being urged on by the experimenter. Feeling as if they will fail the experiment if they fail to continue, most people do. In Herbert C. Kelmans and Lee Hamilton's article, "The My …show more content…
William T. Santiago. After taping and tying up Santiago, who as a result dies, Dawson and Downey are charged as a result of their actions. Lieutenant Calley, who was charged with 109 killings during the My Lai Massacre, states that a soldier's job is to simply carry out any order to the best of their ability. When asked by his defense attorney what might happen if he was to disobey an order, Calley responds, you could be court- martialed or sent to death and claims he was never told he had the choice to form a determination of the legality of the situation (K & H 136). According to the article "A Matter of Obedience," it was proven in the Milgram experiment that participants were less likely to obey the experimenters commands when he wasn’t present in the room. "Without an authority figure in the room, only 21 percent continued to the end" (A Matter of..). Milgram as well as Kelmen and Hamilton both effectively demonstrate the part authorization plays in blind

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