Premium Essay

Obedience

In:

Submitted By qiqiwang
Words 1013
Pages 5
Erin Poulsen
ACP W131
Mr. Scanlan
19 October, 2015
Comparative Critique Obedience and Disobedience has been a part of key moments in history. Many have studied forms of obedience to learn how it affects people and situations. For example, Stanley Milgram conducted a well-known experiment in which the subject, named the “teacher” must shock the “learner” every time he doesn’t remember a word pair from a memory test. The focus of this study is on the teacher, and whether they will administer killing shocks when told to by an authority figure. Another well-known experiment is the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo. A group of college boys were separated into two groups, prison guards and prisoners, and were put into a mock prison to test how obedience plays out in a prison setting. Many others have studied obedience and discussed key aspects of them. In Erich Fromm’s “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem”, Fromm discusses varieties of obedience and disobedience. He argues that Similarly Theodore Dalrymple examines blind disobedience to authority in his article “Just Do What the Pilot Tells You”. Dalrymple argues that there needs to be a balance between obedience and disobedience. Fromm begins his article by pointing out that for centuries people believed that disobedience is a vice and obedience is a virtue. He goes on by stating that in actuality obedience and disobedience can be either a vice or virtue depending on certain situations. He defines the different varieties of obedience and studies how Freudian concepts factor in to the varieties of obedience. He concludes his argument by discussing how comforting obedience appears to be and why it is so difficult to disobey. In “Just Do What the Pilot Tells You”, Dalrymple cites Milgrams’ experiment and discusses the results and then recalls an instance where a woman was seated

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Outline and Evaluate Research Into Obedience

...Obedience is complying with an order from another person to carry out an action. Many studies have been conducted into looking at obedience in people and what factors in a certain situation lead people to obey. In 1963, Milgram carried out a study among 40 American males between the ages of 20 and 50 years old, with the study aim being wanting to find out under what conditions would different people obey to authority under. The participants were deceived into thinking they would be emitting electric shocks, to inflict pain onto an individual when they gave a wrong answer to a question; the question being a word matching query. The participant here played the role of a teacher and the learner in this case was in fact the confederate. The shock meter went up in pain voltages as the experiment went on and more wrong answers were issued. However, there was no real pain being inflicted, just the sound of the learner acting as if he was hurt. The experiment carried on until the participant refused to obey the orders being given to them, or until the highest shock voltage of 450 volts was reached. However, stern encouragement was given to the participant by the leader of the experiment to carry on going and issue out the shocks, even though it was putting the learner through a great deal of audible pain. The experimenter would tell the teacher ‘it’s absolutely essential that you continue’ or ‘you have no choice, you must go on’. It seemed that in fact these instructions from an authoritative...

Words: 798 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

The Milgram Experiment

...orders to carry out immoral acts even when they know it is wrong? Under what circumstances are normal everyday people obedient to authority? Research Aim: To find out if people would obey an unjust order to inflict pain on someone else. Research Hypothesis: That people would not be willing to inflict pain on one another simply because they were told to do so. Variables: IV, DV, Extraneous: Independent Variable Dependent Variable Extraneous Variable Proximity of the learner Amount of shock administered Closeness of the authority Duration of the shock Prestige of the setting Speed of the response Presence of rebellious peers Research Method: Forty male participants were selected after replying to a newspaper ad for an obedience experiment. At the beginning of the experiment they met a man called Mr Wallis, a mild-mannered man in his fifties; who was then hooked up to a charge generator. He was in fact a confederate. The participant sat in another room and tested 'Mr Wallis' on word pairs, when he got one wrong, the participant was to give him an electric shock. These increased as more incorrect answers were given from 15 to 450 volts. Each time a shock was given a pre-recorded sound played indicating Mr Wallis in varying degrees of pain, until after 315 volts there was an eerie silence. Each time they tried to stop Milgram himself encouraged the participant to continue (this was the authority figure). Subject Selection and Allocation: Both the learner and...

Words: 523 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Obedience

...Obedience is a form of social influence that occurs when a person yields to explicit instructions on orders from an authority figure. Obedience is compliance with commands given by an authority figure. In the 1960s, the social psychologist Stanley Milgram did a famous research study called the obedience study. It showed that people have a strong tendency to comply with authority figures. Milgram’s Obedience Study Milgram told his forty male volunteer research subjects that they were participating in a study about the effects of punishment on learning. He assigned each of the subjects to the role of teacher. Each subject was told that his task was to help another subject like himself learn a list of word pairs. Each time the learner made a mistake, the teacher was to give the learner an electric shock by flipping a switch. The teacher was told to increase the shock level each time the learner made a mistake, until a dangerous shock level was reached. Throughout the course of the experiment, the experimenter firmly commanded the teachers to follow the instructions they had been given. In reality, the learner was not an experiment subject but Milgram’s accomplice, and he never actually received an electric shock. However, he pretended to be in pain when shocks were administered. Prior to the study, forty psychiatrists that Milgram consulted told him that fewer than 1 percent of subjects would administer what they thought were dangerous shocks to the learner...

Words: 1700 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

Obedience to a

...Obedience to Authorit Obedience to Authority Obedience is a term that can take place in many forms and with diverse individuals, especially with those who are authoritative figures. With many forms of destruction and life-threatening violence taking place during the middle part of the 20th century, many psychologists and scientists took interest in how ordinary individuals reacted to individuals in authority. One psychology in particular, Stanley Milgram, conducted a series of experiments investigating individuals’ obedient behavior to authoritative figures, whether positive deeds or acts of violence. This paper will summarize Milgram’s famous research as well as analyze the most current research of conforming to authority. Additionally, this paper will examine the current research on Milgram's findings from the early part of the 1960s. Summary of Milgram's Research Stanley Milgram (1963) was a social psychologist who set out to investigate human obedience, especially following the Second World War and in particular, the Holocaust (Milgram, 1963). Milgram’s interest was to conduct a study to answer the research question, are Germans different? However, as Milgram began to develop a tool used for studying obedience, he soon discovered that all individuals are remarkably obedient to people in authority. Milgram chose a naive subject to administer a dangerous electric shock to a victim, which releases voltage ranges from 15 to 450 (Milgram, 1963). Throughout the experiment...

Words: 1126 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Qrt2 E-Business Task 1

...E- Business QRT Task 1 Craig Foreman April 18, 2014 Western Governors University A1. Viability of Product or Service A local business named K9 College is well known in the community for providing expert dog training. Customers can choose to participate in training that ranges from basic obedience to complicated areas such as training assistance animals for the handicapped. The most popular training option available to customers is agility training, a sport in which dogs are trained to compete on an obstacle course and points are awarded for time and accuracy. K9 College has always provided a limited product line. Dog toys, leashes, and grooming supplies are available for purchase in the training facility, but with the increasing popularity of agility training dog owners are asking to purchase the obstacles for practice at home in preparation for agility events. K9 College has started to stock a small inventory of obstacles that can be purchased at the training facility. Dog agility events are increasing in popularity nationwide and K9 College participates in events held in many different venues across the country. Because of their training background, K9 College is invited to present workshops during events to help beginners learn the basics of the sport and give experienced participants an opportunity to hone their skills. With this increasing exposure, K9 College is seeing a steady increase in the amount of traffic visiting their website and Facebook...

Words: 1680 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

Obedience

...Abu Ghraib During the war in Iraq that began in March 2003, personnel of the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency committed a series of human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. These violations included physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy, and murder. The abuses came to light with reports published in late 2003 by Amnesty International and the Associated Press. The incidents received widespread condemnation both within the United States and abroad, although the soldiers received support from some conservative media within the US. The administration of George W. Bush attempted to portray the abuses as isolated incidents, not indicative of general US policy. This was contradicted by humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, stated after multiple investigations that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated but were part of a wider pattern of torture and brutal treatment at American overseas detention centers, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. There was evidence that authorization for the torture had come from high up in the military hierarchy, with allegations being made that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had authorized some of the actions. The United States Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault...

Words: 590 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Earn 5$ Per Day with Adsense - - Guaranteed!!!

...So how did I take a site from 0-450 visitors per day (on the weekend mind you, much slower) and earning over $5 per day in adsense alone AND on the first page of msn for its main keywords in less then 3 weeks. Unfortunately I won t be showing this site as I did in the last post. Due to many reasons. Only a few now about it, and heck you could probably find it anyhow. (I know the investigative powers of the warrior forum) The first step that I take when looking at building a new site is the keyword research, and topic research. There are many ways you can go about doing this. My fav way at the moment is by using The Dowser tool, also I use wordtracker and even a free tool. http://www.123promotion.co.uk/ppc/index.php Once there, start running your list ideas through the keyword tool and look for something which has a decent traffic count in overture. (I choose overture as an example because it is widely recognized). I usually target niches with 80,000 upward searches per month for the main keyword. This way you are bound to be able to drive some good traffic to your site. The recent site I picked had 1,000,000 searches per month. Then I would plug in some of the top sites into SeoElite and find out how much seo the main sites are doing and how hard or easy it is going to be to beat them. Next thing I do is research affiliate products and adsense ads available for that keyword. The adsense ads you can do either in The Dowser tool. Or you can go to http://www...

Words: 1573 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

Pet Food

...taught me a valuable lesson; even though my dog did achieve an obedience title he showed me there are greater things in life than getting that .Training your dog for the obedience ring is a lot of hard work. We trained for months working twice a day seven days a week. While we enjoyed training I wanted to earn that obedience title so bad I it was all I could think of for months. Uconn knew all the exercises he needed to perform inside and out, backwards and forwards. I went to the ring area with Uconn early in the morning. I wanted both of us to get accustom to the sights and sounds of where the obedience ring was set up. I had a book with me to try to so some reading to relax before we went in the ring. It was a warm August day. The building we were in was a pole building at the fairgrounds. It was damp and cool in the building and I wondered if the cool air was making me feel not so great. The obedience ring was set up with white gating all around it. It was a perfect square. The matting being used was rubber and a dark green color. We found a place in the last row. The area was crowded with spectators, other exhibitors and dogs. The judge was a woman. I had seen and shown other dogs under her in the past. She was very pleasant and smiled and welcomed us in her ring. For one thing the dog is very unpredictable. It takes a lot of hard work and patience to get your dog trained. I was at an obedience trial with Uconn. There was a little boy in a wheelchair. Uconn...

Words: 656 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Blind Obedience

...Lewis Eng. 122 May 8,2013    Blind obedience   Society often view obedience as a good quality or trait to have; employers want obedient employees and parents often wish for obedient children. Being obedient means that an individual shows respect for an authority figure and will carry out the instructions they are given; when someone is obedient they are widely accepted by society, because they do whatever it is that society asks of them. But obedience carried too far can have disastrous consequences to both the individual and society; this is referred to as blind obedience.  Blind obedience is when a person follows authority without even thinking about the consequences that the order to which they are obeying carries. It’s as if the authority figures are puppeteers and the people blindly obeying them the puppets. Puppeteers and their puppets best illustrate the relationship between the authority figure and the people doing horrendous actions, because being obedient is the right thing to do. So many events in history have proven how inhumane human beings can be when following authority. Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted one of the most controversial experiments in history, in attempt to demonstrate how individuals can lose themselves to an authority figure. Milgram’s experiment was called “Obedience to Authority.”   Theodore Dalrymple wrote an article titled, “Just do What the Pilot Tells...

Words: 2109 - Pages: 9

Premium Essay

Obedience Behavior

...Psychology Obedience Behavior For doing a similar like the one like Milgram did there many different tactics you can use to enforce obedience behavior instead of pain like; you could use fear especially someone has an extreme phobic of something or fear something could happen if they don’t do their job. The power of fear conqueror many things especially if someone doesn’t have a strong will power to conqueror there fear or it doesn’t has to do with you could have fear through the power of having love for something the will enforce fear. Since you enforce the fear in the person even if you have subject doing the job you told him to do, one of a few things could happen they will question you about what they’re doing is wrong or even unmoral hearing you tell them to keep doing that may be humiliating them hearing you the authority figure saying to continue will be reassuring since they are getting paid for the job and hearing they will not get in trouble make the person more convincing to keep doing his job and not listen to the other subject when he says he want to stop that’s when you have the other subject use the power of fear on that person to make him comply. Which for this to work on the person, he has to be in a believable environment. Another angle the experiment could happen if the first subject is with a group of people seeing everyone is doing the same job with without anyone refusing they’re more willing to be obedience to comply to the unmoral deeds...

Words: 654 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Obedience to Authority

...Obedience to Authority Making a significant contribution to social psychology, Stanley Milgram focused his studies on authority, specifically on how individuals react to it and are obedient to it. His groundbreaking and famous experiment surprised the world of social psychology, as well as society as a whole (Blass, 2002). Throughout this paper, the reasoning behind Milgram’s study of obedience to authority will be discussed. Additionally, the experiment will be explained, beginning with the formulation and ending with the results. Lastly, the influence of the experiment on social psychology, as well as current research on this topic will be covered. Historical Perspective To gain a better understanding of Milgram’s substantial contributions to social psychology, an examination of the historical period in which he started his career is necessary. According to Mastroianni (2002), World War II had just begun and everyone was still traumatized by the alarming reality of what was happening during the war in Europe. As the Nazi concentration camps were being discovered, the world began to find out about Hitler’s plan to purify the “supreme race” (Mastroianni, 2002). The most shocking part of the holocaust was the plans that Hitler had were being implemented (Mastroianni, 2002). Due to the unfolding events happening during World War II, Blass (2002) pointed out that there were many unanswered questions at the time. As a society, people just could not understand how one person...

Words: 1556 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

Covenant Obedience

...Bible 105 November 16, 2014 Covenant Obedience The first three kings of Israel were Saul, David, and Solomon and each had their own strengths and weaknesses. Each king obeyed and disobeyed God, receiving blessings and punishments as a result. At the end of Solomon’s reign, due to his disobedience, Israel was a divided nation. The rise and fall of each king depended on their covenant obedience. During the early years of Israel, the nation was looked after by judges. The Israelites were very disobedient and would continually turn their backs on God until they needed him. God used several judges to bring the Israelites from underneath the oppression imposed on them by various groups such as the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Philistines. Each judge had a specific quality that would have made them less than worthy for a great position in the eyes of the people. For instance, Ehud was left-handed, Gideon was a coward, and Samson was an adulterer but God deliberately choose the least likely candidates to prove that anything is possible when you trust in Him. According to Judges 21:25 (HCSB), “in those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever he wanted. This cycle of disobedience to God, and God raising up a judge, eventually led the way to kingship. Because a judge could only partially and imperfectly administer Torah (legislative function), executive justice (executive function), and condemn lawbreakers (judicial function), a king was needed who could...

Words: 1035 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Conformity and Obedience

...Conformity and Obedience Conformity: Conformity is a type of social influence or compliance in belief or behaviour in order to fit in or it could be known as behaviour in accordance with socially accepted conventions (also known as social norms) which could be standards or regulations within the public services such as dress regulations within the armed forces or the police. Compliance means the act of conforming or obeying an order or request and compliance with common practices is conforming to a common or reoccurring act, an example of this is when a recruit within the armed forces sees other soldiers saluting officers or standing in attention and this act keeps occurring the recruit would soon comply with those common practices. Social norms are what seem normal in a group or society, this could be acts or beliefs. Most people comply with social norms so that they do not feel an outcast within their group and to not seem abnormal within the group. An example of this could be that a group of friends seem to think it is normal to bully people, one of the members may see this as a terrible act but to not feel an outcast like the bully victim, the person complies with the social norm and starts to bully with the rest of the group. Self-esteem is how an individual may see their own worth and how much self-respect and confidence that person has towards themselves, a person’s background or upbringing may have an effect on their self-esteem. Someone who has a low self-esteem...

Words: 2296 - Pages: 10

Free Essay

Awesome

...Huntsville Obedience Training Club, Inc. HOTC offers classes for puppies between 8 weeks and 18 weeks on the first day of class. Classes meet 50 minutes per week for 8 weeks. Day Time Start Date End Date Monday Monday Wednesday 10:00 AM 6:30 PM 6:30 PM 3/14/16 3/14/16 4/6/16 Notes 5/2/16 5/2/16 5/25/16 skip The total fee for Puppy Class is $95.00 This fee includes class time, a leash and a training manual. The first class is an orientation without puppies. Classes are limited in size. A $25 fee will be charged for all checks returned by the bank. Registrations must be accompanied by a check or money order. They will be accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis and must be received prior to the start of class. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Cut Here, Keep Upper Portion - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mail the registration form and fee to: Make check payable to: Huntsville Obedience Training Club Registration email address: hotcpuppyclass@gmail.com LaDonna Madden, HOTC Puppy Registration 2504 Amberhurst Circle, Huntsville, AL 35810 PUPPY CLASS - REGISTRATION FORM Fee MUST be enclosed in order to register. Name (handler must be 12 or older): ____________________________________________________________________ Address: __________________________________________ City/State: ________________________ Zip: _________ Phone...

Words: 272 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Existential Obedience

...Existential Obedience I would like to present obedience in a very elemental way, largely from the heart, without reference to the usual distinctions made in defining it: the dissection of it into its component parts, the noting of its specific differences from other virtues, and its relationships to other virtues in the theological scheme of things. I want to regard obedience as it relates to living our life in union with and after the example of Christ, seeing obedience as a dynamic of our existence as creatures and children of God. The common denominator of anything said about obedience is this fact of Christian reality: obedience was the leitmotiv, the basic, underlying theme of Jesus as Son of God.   "Here I am to do your will, O God."   The Word was made flesh in obedience to God's plan, and Jesus as the incarnate word lived his life in obedience to the unfolding of that plan as revealed by the Spirit of God. Obedience provided the very sustenance of Jesus' life. He declared that the Father's Will was his very food and drink. He also described obedience to the Father as the criteria by which he qualified our love for Him: if you love me, keep my commandments.   From the example of Jesus during his existence on earth we can discern this: obedience is always an individual's response to God's Will. To be obedient as Jesus, I must choose to conform or be uniform with what God desires of me. Another more basic way of saying the same thing is that obedience is my...

Words: 2983 - Pages: 12