Research Paper on "Behavioral Study of Obedience"

Research Paper 5 pages (1567 words) Sources: 5

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Behavioral Obedience

This current study explored just how obedient people would be in a stressful situation. Researchers designed a study where participants thought they were inflicting pain upon another human being to test the levels of obedience the participants would exhibit. The study, along with 14 Yale seniors, hypothesized that out of 100 people; only 3% would actually commit to the full experiment and continue to give shock treatment after the participants began to realize just how bad it was afflicting the "victim" (Milgram 1963).

Obedience is a crucial element to the delicate social balance that unites individuals within a larger culture. According to the study, "Obedience is as basic as an element in the structure of social life as one can point to" (Milgram 1963 p 371). It is essentially a requirement of living within a modern society, which depends on collaboration to make communal living work. It essentially serves as a predictor and determinant behavior, both in cases where the individual is showing obedience and when they are rebelling against the demand for obedience. Thus, "obedience is the psychological mechanism that inks the individual action to the political purpose. It is the dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority" (Milgram 1963 p 371).

There are a number of different cases of obedience types, some of which bind citizens to worthy and positive causes. Yet, there are also other forms of obedience which can turn much darker. For example, destructive obedience can cause the individual to act immorally in order to fulfill his or her obligation of obedience to a larger authority. Blind obedience is not necessarily a positive progression within any given society or culture. Here, the researchers give the example of Hitler's Nazi Germany. True, Hitler was at the very source of the atrocities committed; yet, it was out of obedience for his rule that such extreme and inhumane practices were actually carried out. Destructive obedience can turn good citizens into destructive and dangerous forces.

Studying obedience can prove an incredibly difficult task, as it is inherently abstract. Throughout the years, the discourse has produced several major studies that aimed to explore the process of obedience within both individual and group psychology. Milgram (1961) created a context for studying obedience that relied on a participant unfamiliar with the actual procedure to be the one administering shocks to a victim. This structure was used by this study. That heavily influenced the methodology and overall procedure of the current study in question.

There were 40 subjects, all male and between the ages of 20 and fifty years old. All were from the general region surrounding New Haven, Connecticut, as the actual study took place on the campus of Yale University. The research shows that recruitment was conducted through reaching out to the local community via mailed advertisements that offered a payment of $4.50 for their participation in the study. According the study itself, 40% were white collar businessman, while 37.5% were unskilled workers, only 1% of the participants were considered a professional (Milgram 1963). Participants were asked if they wanted to participate in a prestigious study regarding the notion of memory and how it is impacted by external elements. They were only later informed those external elements would consist of degrees of pain. Participants within the study were completely ignorant of the fact the shocks were not actually being administered to the "victim." Subjects were greeted with an experimenter who was supposed to be a 31-year-old high school teacher working in the biology department of a local high school. The study states that "His manner was impassive, and his appearance somewhat stern throughout the experiment" and was dressed in grey lab coat that was traditional of research in such lab contexts (Milgram 1963 p 373). Additionally, the participants were introduced to the "victim," who was an actor playing a 47-year-old accountant. This actor, "he was of Irish-American stock, whom most observers found mild-mannered and likable (Milgram 1963 p 373). The researchers made it clear to present a likable victim, rather than one who could be easily demonized by the participants.

This is an example of an empirical study working within the context of a definitive laboratory. A cover story was created to inform the participant that the study was essentially a study on learning, and how pain affected memory in the process of learning. The study was supposed to have brought in participants from different professional genres and walks of life to understand how pain affected learning in very different types of individuals. The participant was then asked to perform as the teachers, who tested his memory with the threat of a shock at a wrong answer. Any wrong response was met with a shock. Before each participant began administering questions, they were given a sample shock, which was a real-life jolt of energy to make them believe that the device was actually generating shocks once they initiated them. Most of the participants believed the context of the study. The participants were asked to give increasing punishment delivered by a shock generator. Participants were told that the shocks were not permanently damaging, although they could be quite painful, and the reactions from the fake victims definitely portrayed them as painful. The generator itself is divided up into 30 different settings. These settings range from "Slight Shock" to "Danger: Severe Shock" (Milgram 1963 p 372). The subject was then asked to incrementally hit the victim with these shocks until the naive participant was unwilling to continue further with the research test. According to the research, "the orders to administer shocks are given to the naive subject in the context of a 'learning experiment' ostensibly set up to study the effects of punishment on memory" (Milgram 1963 p 372). These shocks were then met by standardized fake reactions from the conductor of the study who was pretending to be shocked. The "victim" was located in another room, therefore out of view of the participants. Yet, once the shock meter hit 300, the "victim" automatically began making loud noises and punching on the wall so that the participant could hear him. The study procedure was aimed to disturb the emotional state of the participant to the point where a particular level of disobedience was achieved and the participant refused to participate with the study any further. In this, "the point of rupture is the act of disobedience" (Milgram 1963 p 372).

Data was then analyzed using a quantitative mode of measurement, where a numerical value was assigned to the level at which the participant backed out of the study. Therefore, "for any particular subject and for any particular experimental condition the degree of obedience may be specified with a numerical value" (Milgram 1963 p 372). This would allow the researchers to statistically analyze the data to make meaningful assumptions out of the relationships and patterns observed throughout the experiment. Thus, one of the independent variables was the noises made by the victim to signify his pain. Even more intricate, the study design allowed researchers to manipulate the variables during the actual execution of the study itself. Essentially, the variables were altered throughout the experiments as to help postulate which factors were more crucial in establishing greater instances of negative obedience and which would facilitate greater internal resistance that would lead the patients to disobey the orders of the researchers. Essentially, "the crux of the study is to systematically vary the factors believed to alter the degree of obedience to the experimental commands" (Milgram 1963 p 372). The dependent variable, in this case, was maximum shock value that the participant was willing to undergo during the context of the research.

Overall, the study's findings illustrated that most of the participants showed anxiety and nerves in the experiment, which increased… READ MORE

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