Chapter Summaries
Ch. 1 - The Dilemma of Obedience: This first chapter serves to introduce the experiment, which, I think is quite an interesting one. After thinking about it, it makes perfect sense. I think it points out a very crucial issues with humans, in that we pass off the blame until no one is held responsible.
Ch. 2 - Method of Inquiry: Chapter 2 is a nice chapter that that explains the procedure of the experiment in greater detail. I like how it tells us the exact steps that were taken. It definitely helps explain how this process was scientific, as I originally thought there would be too many variables due to human interaction.
Ch. 3 - Expecte Behavior: Chapter 3 is a short chapter discussing the expectations of the experiment. Most people predicted that the subjects would stop at the 10th shock level (first demand to be freed). I thought this accurate, because I feel that is what I would of predicted as well.
Ch. 4 - Closeness of the Victim: I found this chapter on closeness to the victim quite a nice twist on the study. It makes sense that the closer the "teacher" is to the victim, the sooner they will disobey. It does seem a tough situation to be in, and I am surprised that some people actually followed through with the close proximity test.
Ch. 5 - Individuals Confront Authority: I think it was very good of Milgram to include some responses from participants in the experiment. This chapter does a good job of giving a "teacher's" point of view. It shows the pain that some of these people went through when obeying instructions.
Ch. 6 - Further Variations and Controls: After reading the first 3 chapters of this book, I was wondering how it would stretch to so many chapters, but now I see that they did many variations of this test. I think this was good, because it was necessary to prove that it was indeed authority. The experiment at Bridgeport was especially interesting to me, as I felt people only followed instructions because the trusted Yale in the initial test. This was obviously proven wrong.
Chapter 7: Chapter 7 just seemed to show the cruelty of the experiment to me. These people seemed quite troubled at the task they obeyed to perform. It seems not quite ethical to put someone through such as scenario. Mrs. Rosenblum seemed especially confused, and Mr. Gino came off as quite cynical with his bragging about "doing his job", even if the man was dead.
Ch. 8 - Role Permutations: This chapter was quite interesting to me. The one experiment with two authorities and one as a victim really surprised me. It seems crazy that the "victim authority" could lose his role so easily and be treated as any of the other "ordinary victims".
Ch. 9 - Group Effects: The section on the shock administer disobeying early because the rest of the group disobeyed seemed to match my predictions. The interesting experiment was the one where the naive subject does not administer shocks, and so goes on fully with the experiment. It is rather eye opening to think of the real life parallels of such a scenario. People don't stop wrong, but remain accessories to it because they are not directly doing the wrong.
Ch. 10 - Why Obedience? An Analysis: This chapter's in depth look on obedience was an interesting read. It does a good job of explaining why humans would obey and the need for hierarchy. It does make sense -- we need hierarchy and obedience to keep society organized and functioning.
Ch. 11 - The Process of Obedience: Chapter 11 delves into the reasons why people obey. It discusses the social norms and feelings people have when obeying authority. I found the section on anxiety especially true, as it states that breaking social norms is troubling until the break occurs.
Ch. 12 - Strain and Disobedience: This chapter discusses the strain that people go through when they are faced with issues they are uncomfortable with. It also talks about the different ways people reduce their strain, such as passing of responsibility or avoiding the discomfort.
Ch. 13 - An Alternative Theory: Is Aggression the Key?: The author points out the possibility of aggression being the reason for people continuing to shock. As he points out, this is not the case, because as in experiment 11, people chose to shock at the lowest levels when given the option. They were not aggressive, but merely following orders.
Ch. 14 - Problems of Method: This chapter discusses the possible problems the experiment might of had and why they were not in fact issues. The more times and more variations of this experiment just go to show and prove its correctness. People obey authority, even if it is not moral.
Ch. 15 - Epilogue: This chapter goes into the moral aspect of the experiments. It raises a good question of how people can judge the subjects of this experiment with disdain, and then be okay with the killing in wars. The story of the massacre is especially troubling and brings back thoughts of Nazis. It is scary what people will do when they are just obeying orders.
Ch. 15 - Epilogue: This chapter goes into the moral aspect of the experiments. It raises a good question of how people can judge the subjects of this experiment with disdain, and then be okay with the killing in wars. The story of the massacre is especially troubling and brings back thoughts of Nazis. It is scary what people will do when they are just obeying orders.
Book Summary
I thought this book was very interesting and did a good job of testing out its initial goal. The goal was to see if most people would obey even if it is immoral. This question was supposed to parallel the obedience that Nazis held during their experiments that killed and harmed people. Although the Nazis operated over a decade long and this experiment lasted only an hour, I feel that it still did a great job of proving the correlation because both tasks involved the same inherent behavior.
I, like most of the people questioned before the tests were run, thought that people would hold to their morals more than the social contract of the experiment. I would not think that a person would continue to shock a complete stranger just because a scientists tells them to. I especially think that screams from the learner would immediately halt the experiment and cause disobedience, but as this book showed, this hypothesis was wrong. It seems quite crazy that so many people went to the full shock value of 450 volts.
Milgram does do a good job of explaining why people obey. Upon further evaluation, you start to understand the position those subjects were in. They volunteered for the experiment and did not want to mess it up. Although they had no reason to trust the scientists, you find yourself trusting such an authority and assuming they are right and that no harm will come of the shocks. The especially interesting point that Milgram makes is the strain that the subjects go through and how they try to reduce it. I can see myself using these same tactics -- avoidance, passing off the blame, "lightly" shocking, etc. -- if I was placed in the situation. Whatever it took to both complete the experiment and not do too much harm to the victim.
I of course hope that I would not go through with the experiment at all, as I can not imagine shocking another stranger for forgetting random word pairs. Of course, the odds would have been against me though, since it appears most people obey, and so I can only assume I would have too. This is a scary thought, and it really makes you wonder. I feel sorry for the subject's that had to learn this the hard way. It seems wrong to inform someone that they are willing to hurt others, without them asking or even wanting to know. Overall though, I guess it was a good experiment and brought to light some important facts about people.
I, like most of the people questioned before the tests were run, thought that people would hold to their morals more than the social contract of the experiment. I would not think that a person would continue to shock a complete stranger just because a scientists tells them to. I especially think that screams from the learner would immediately halt the experiment and cause disobedience, but as this book showed, this hypothesis was wrong. It seems quite crazy that so many people went to the full shock value of 450 volts.
Milgram does do a good job of explaining why people obey. Upon further evaluation, you start to understand the position those subjects were in. They volunteered for the experiment and did not want to mess it up. Although they had no reason to trust the scientists, you find yourself trusting such an authority and assuming they are right and that no harm will come of the shocks. The especially interesting point that Milgram makes is the strain that the subjects go through and how they try to reduce it. I can see myself using these same tactics -- avoidance, passing off the blame, "lightly" shocking, etc. -- if I was placed in the situation. Whatever it took to both complete the experiment and not do too much harm to the victim.
I of course hope that I would not go through with the experiment at all, as I can not imagine shocking another stranger for forgetting random word pairs. Of course, the odds would have been against me though, since it appears most people obey, and so I can only assume I would have too. This is a scary thought, and it really makes you wonder. I feel sorry for the subject's that had to learn this the hard way. It seems wrong to inform someone that they are willing to hurt others, without them asking or even wanting to know. Overall though, I guess it was a good experiment and brought to light some important facts about people.
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