learntoquestion ltq discussions

The Milgram experiment revealed that many people don’t care about hurting people as an action, but rather the feeling of guilt from hurting others, the idea that you were connected and responsible for another’s pain. Ordinary people are willing to do the most vilest things as long as they personally feel like they are not the one who wants the pain to befall the person. The teacher during one of the experiments, showed the teacher saying that they wanted to stop, but after a little pressure from the instructor and the instructor stating that he will “take all responsibility”, immediately, the teacher continued the shocks. The Milgram experiment demonstrated that although people do feel remorse for shocking the learner, they often will continue to do so if they insert this idea in their mind that they have no choice in the decision, that they are just a cog in a machine. They feel disconnected from the pain they inflict, hence making them more able to do so. This reflects the ideas and findings in “How Nazi's Defense of "Just Following Orders" Plays Out in the Mind” by Joshua Barajas, in which individuals doing heinous acts felt disconnected from the harm of the actions if it were done under a commander’s orders. He said it makes people feel less responsible for their actions, no matter how damaging so much so to the point that when acting under orders, brain activity is reduced, insinuating that there is less thinking involved in the person performing the action, hence less guilt. The only time a teacher stopped from shocking the learner more, had nothing to do with external factors, as the experiment was a replica of the ones where the teacher continued to shock, but had more to do with the strength of the individual. The man that stopped shocking the individual did not give into the demands of necessity, he did not view the person of authority as the one in power. He was conscious of the fact that he was the one truly in control, the one who pushed the button, and he had such a strong sense of self and morals that he refused to pass that threshold even if it was someone else making him do it. He refused to make any excuses or shift the blame, and in his mind he would take 100% accountability for his actions. Creating a society in which this sort of thinking and mental strength is prevalent is very difficult and would require people to be brought up in environments that complement self thought without the fear of what other people think. However, with humans being social creatures, how the world built its education system to have its students regurgitate what they are taught, and how parents teach their children what they believe is right all contribute to the extreme difficulty of this feat. Additionally, if people are raised to think for themselves and trust their own instincts over the words of others 100%, then often no one would be able to agree and everyone would stay rigid to their own opinions. It would create a non cohesive society.

After watching and reading about the milgram experiments I believe that under the right circumstances , or wrong in this case, the majority of people can be pressured into doing bad things. The experiment showed how someones rational and moral compass can be altered by an authoritative figure. I think that Milgram's experiment provides insight as to why mass atrocities and genocides occur. There is a difference in saying that you are a violent person and you have the ability to inflict violence. When a person is told, encouraged or forced to commit a violent act there is a diffusion of responsibility that takes place in order to protect their conscience and decrease dissonance. For example during the holocaust the people who were tasked with turning on the gas chambers to murder people, would then blame their commanders for the deaths because they were just doing their job. If there is a person who tells you to carry out an act of violence persistently people will eventually crack under pressure. When you add additional layers to this pressure, like the threat of violence if you do not follow through, or exclusion from the group it is almost guaranteed to work. I think that this also connects back to Social conformity theory which states that most people are willing to forego what they know is right to fit in with the majority.

I think that the artificial environment that Milgram's experiment created is not the best one to determine for sure given the many variables that are at play. The “teachers” who disobeyed the “experimenter” show clear signs of being a dissenter. The ones that resisted have a strong sense of self identity. They believe strongly in what is right and what is wrong and they respect their morals too much to be swayed. As a society we should encourage people to have a strong sense of self. Personally I think the way things are set up for children now does not accomplish this. Children are told to obey without question. In school we have to sit, file in single lines, talk when told, etc. Instead of encouraging children to be curious and different we punish them for stepping out of line, and oftentimes punish them for asking why. I think as a society we should reflect on how we instill behavior into people from a young age.

A person can deem themselves an all around “good person” but anyone can find themselves to be a perpetrator of violence against others under several different circumstances. Despite one's morals, I think there’s always going to be something that pushes one to become a perpetrator of violence. As the Milgram experiment portrayed, a person can go to great lengths under an authoritative figure. Humans are so inclined to listen to an authority figure because we were born that way, through following orders from one’s parents, or listening to instructions from a teacher, to following directions from law enforcement. Humans are constantly being instructed, ordered, or led. The feeling of cooperating can often feel rewarding, knowing that you’re doing something right, but also people do not want to face the consequences of disobeying authority.

I think the Milgram experiment is a perfect explanation of ordinary people’s active participation in violence, mass atrocities, and genocide. Many people did not want to disobey the Nazi Party for fear they’d be killed, and the Nazi Party claimed they would alleviate all of Germany’s problems regarding the economy and political instability, so the German people were so willing to accept these ideas, despite the ridiculous propaganda being spread. More factors that come into play is that the “teachers” were more inclined to obey when the “learner” wasn’t in the room. This creates this dissonance for the teachers because they can’t actually see the learner who is experiencing pain so the lack of guilt becomes more present. If the “teachers” watched the “learners” squirm with pain, there would probably be a greater chance of hesitation, but “teachers” might convince themselves to continue by holding more responsibility to the authority, and almost blame the experimenters for instructing the “teachers” to inflict harm upon the “learners”. Ultimately it’s this idea of not taking accountability for one’s actions, or finding ways to justify one’s actions under pressure, which again is cognitive dissonance. Also by giving the “teachers” this power and control, it might give a person more confidence, and help with one’s self-esteem.

What I found extremely interesting was in the “The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment” reading by Maria Korrinkova, where the author points out “the ease with which regular people, if given too much power, could transform into ruthless oppressors”. It is so fascinating how people can just flip the script and become “tyrants” as soon as they are slightly pushed into a position of power. It’s just the sad reality that people can just forget about their morals, or are willing to harm others because of the ego boost they get.

Of course we should endorse and attempt to create societies that value and encourage the traits of people who disobey unethical authority figures but the biggest problem with that is that many are scared of being different and a lot conform to the mainstream ideas of society despite what they truly believe. We have discussed this idea in class as well, where people try so hard to fit in with society that they just drop their own opinions and beliefs. It is also since change is such a difficult thing that people are so quick to reject anything remotely new. The danger in creating societies that value and encourage the traits of people who disobey unethical authority figures is that it promotes this concept that people should retaliate more, and eventually this could evolve into not just disobeying unethical authority figures, but authority figures in general. As a result, this act of defiance can get extremely out of hand and corruption and disorder would likely follow.

I think that Milgram's experiment and others like it can explain why someone might do something but definitely does not justify it. Everyone will have a very different reason for wanting to follow someone who is above them in a social standing. Some might feel there is going to be a punishment of some sort, they can get fired, killed, and so many other reasons. In this case, the “teachers” were getting paid for their participation so they could feel they were not going to be paid if they stopped. Another factor that could play into someone's willingness to inflict pain on another person could be their thinking they deserve it. In that study, one would be “shocked” after getting an answer incorrect so someone could see that as a completely reasonable excuse to “punish” or “shock” the learner. I think everyone does have the power to become a perpetrator of violence. Anyone could stand up and stop something but it is whether they do or they do not. Many may think that it is black and white between doing something versus not but there are a lot of social aspects that will go into it. Someone may feel they are going to be judged by others for doing or not doing something. Others might feel there will be some kind of repercussion. The Milgram experiment supports both sides of when people will follow through and when people will say no that is enough and not right. One of the “teachers” refused to continue with shocking the learned after about 4 or 5 times and hearing the man yell in pain about his heart. Whereas the other man continued when told to do so. He was hesitant but only to a certain extent because, in the end, he got all the way up to the high voltage. The Milgram project completely shows a sort of obedience to authority. Just because they are being told to continue even when they know it is wrong supports the idea of why ordinary people will engage in mass violence and movements when they are told to do so. Everyone will have a different justification to make themselves feel better about doing something that could be possibly horrifying. Many will say they did not want to get punished and end up on the other side of the violence or that they had no other choice and so on.

I believe that anyone has the potential to become a perpetrator of violence against others themselves, however it depends on their morals and sense of self and justice to see whether they are willing to act on that potential to hurt others. The Milgram experiment itself suggests that it is rooted in human behavior to violence, which I do believe. Humans themselves are very sociable creatures, leaning on a group to help further their survival, and willing to do anything to keep themselves from harm or susceptible exclusion from that group regardless if it means hurting another. When there is a leader of a social group, they are the person who dictates the arms and legs of the party with everyone following along. This kind of authoritative power allows those who follow it two different ways and or perspectives to follow. Follow along to reduce the chance of being hurt yourself for disobeying the masses, but also follow along so that you yourself cannot be solely blamed on your own actions. And if the action that they are doing is violent, and everyone else is doing it, what is stopping a person from doing it if they are not going to be the one held responsible for their actions. It allows for the morals that hold a regular person back from violence to be pushed aside for the reason and excuse that they are not held accountable and that they are only doing what the person in power is telling them to. Allowing that more or so primal instinct of violence to emerge without consequences.

I think experiments like Milgram’s actually explain ordinary people’s active participation in violence, mass atrocities and genocide. Displaying the power that someone sitting at an authoritative position could directly affect people and change their views, dampening their dissonance for following the orders of someone else, regardless if it had hurt someone. However this kind of power is also not just the only factor that comes into play. Factors such as the idea that the other party might be from a faction that you have indescribable hatred towards, or whether it is someone of similar background and descent, or even the beliefs or age would cause a different outcome than what the Milgram experiment showed. If the learner had been someone whose views directly opposed the teachers, such as with the political state of America now, Democratic or Republican. There would be a higher chance that the opposing party would be more keen to shock and hurt the other party rather than their own.

Yes, everyone has the potential to become a perpetrator of violence against others given the right situational factors. The Milgram experiments revealed that authority can strongly influence behavior and can drive people to inflict harm even if they don't intend to. Even so, not everyone will act on their inevitable potential to become a perpetrator in similar situations. Factors like context, level of violence, number of authority figures and victims significantly influence a person's decision. The desire to conform to aspects of human behavior is what makes it possible for us to willingly inflict pain on others. The human susceptibility to authority can override our empathy and moral judgment. The participants felt obliged to administer the shocks because they felt that the authority figures were legitimate enough to know what they were doing. They also believed that the responsibility lay with the experimenter, not themselves, which lifted a weight off their moral conscience.

In addition, this shift of responsibility explains how experiments like the MIlgram’s explain ordinary people’s active participation in violence, mass atrocities and genocide.In How Nazi's Defense of "Just Following Orders " Plays Out in the Mind” by Joshua Barajas, he highlights that “..people actually feel disconnected from their actions when they comply with orders, even though they’re the ones committing the act”, which supports the general belief of people of under authority that they are fulfilling a duty rather than commiting immoral acts. This dehumanization enables widespread participation atrocities and genocide. Other factors such as group dynamics, propaganda and fear also come into play. These individuals strive for a sense of belonging and want to be a part of the collective. Also the perception of viewing the hated group as a threat to one's identity or community drives this participation.

Important factors that led the ‘teachers’ in the Milgram experiment to disobey the ‘experimenter’ were being able to hear the learner’s cry for help, triggering empathy. They viewed themselves as perpetrators who were purposely causing harm, which motivated some to begin to question the authority. Personality traits include confidence, responsibility and empathy, confident ‘teachers’ were able to trust their own judgment over external pressure from the ‘experimenters’. Individuals who are responsible take accountability for their actions and wont shift the blame. Yes, we can attempt to create societies that value and encourage traits of responsibility, confidence and empathy when faced with unethical authority figures. Through emphasizing the importance of having ethical principles and moral responsibility in everyday life, such as school and work, people will be more inclined to question orders instead of blindly obeying them. Yes, the danger in encouraging disobedience could be the potential breakdown of authority structures. People would have less trust in legitimate authority figures which could lead to chaos and social disorder. Necessary laws and guidelines may be broken and impulses may take over. It's important to have a balance between individual liberties and authority.

I believe that everyone does have the potential to commit to violence on other people. It is not solely based on how they feel about people though. It can stem from a multitude of things: trauma, peer pressure, anger, sadness, and much more. Many of the actions people play out can vary depending on the circumstance, but the Milgram experiment highlights what pressure can lead a person to do. They will attempt to excuse their motives by blaming another person involved, especially when it is in a group setting. Our instincts as humans are to look for ways to make ourselves feel better about what we do, even if that means gas-lighting another person to prioritize ourselves. We believe ourselves to be the victims prior to others; a selfish conscience that can place others in harm’s way. As concluded from the theory regarding the bystander effect, where a person chooses to deflect the responsibility onto someone else to save themselves. It is a selfish method of basic “fight or flight” that can unconsciously bring harm to others in the process, as physically highlighted in the Milgram experiment. Although the experiment was exaggerated in certain details, it still provided the viewers with a clear understanding of what would happen if things like this were real. For some critics, however, it was “difficult to ascertain whether participants are really deceived or not in such situations” as they deemed there was not enough realistic proof to make the experiment accurate. It should still be noted of how the people did react in the situations, whether they believed it to be fake or not. Reasons for them recognizing the fabricated details of the experiment should not be the focus, but rather how much they chose to value another human being’s life in the scenario. Some that recognized the misleading information still had a strong response to defending the alleged victim, which was the “learner.” These good sumeritans were able to place themselves in the role of the “learner” and treated them like a person with feelings, not just a ragdoll that they could profit from. Others in the experiment allowed their conscience to be tainted by the person enforcing the rules, verifying how people will often seek alidation from another source to provide themselves with comfort in their decisions, as noted by the man who continued until the end of the “shock treatment.” He continued to deflect his reasons for continuing, but it became evident that he did so to not be judged or shunned by the rule enforcer, convincing himself that the person on the other side would be fine or that the worst had already happened.

Everyone does have the potential to become a perpetrator of violence against others, wether they are being commanded to, or are the one being commanded. This was seen in the Milgram experiment, as the figure of Authority was commanding college students to administer electric shocks. Both were harming another person, and both of them have the option of blaming the harm on someone else. The person administering the shocks can blame the harm caused on the authority figure, and the authority figure can do the opposite. In a 2016 reflection of the Holocaust, Joshua Barajas explained this by saying “people actually feel disconnected from their actions when they comply with orders, even though they’re the ones committing the act.” (Barajas). This explains why ordinary people were able to become perpetrators of violence- becoming Nazis. If the blame can be shifted onto another person, people are far more likely to carry out an action that they typically wouldn't do. Because of this, Milgram’s experiments actually explain ordinary people’s active participation in violence, mass atrocities and genocide. The way that Jewish people were predominantly killed in the Holocaust upholds this idea. The vast majority of Holocaust victims were killed in gas chambers at concentration camps. These chambers were sealed on all sides, never allowing any Nazi to see the victims die. According to the Milgram experiments, the Nazis not being able to see their victims suffer contributed to their role in genocide.

However, other factors come into play, all of which eliminate the divide between the person administering and receiving electric shocks. In one experiment where the “learner”, receiving the shocks was visible and present in the room, the percentage of people who administered all possible shocks severely decreased. The percentage of people willing to fully electrocute the “learner” went from 65% to 30%. The opportunity to see and empathize with the learners allowed for more autonomy in the participants. Beside the blind following of authority, prejudices and biases that dehumanize a victim contributes to some people's willingness to inflict pain on others. Social darwinism, which claimed that black people were less “evolved” than white people, was widely used to justify systemic oppression of black people globally.

Societies that value and encourage the traits of people who disobey unethical authority figures would allow for higher accountability in governance. The people in a democracy need a voice and power in order to make change. A truly good politician would not have protesters arrested outside of their rally, however would arrest any that were being violent or hateful. This explains the importance of checks and balances in a society, something that lacked severely in Nazi Germany. However, this concept is reliant on the feelings and perceptions of the masses, which can be unreliable. Since the Nazis hated the Jewish people, they might disobey an authority figure that they saw as “unethical”, that was actually advocating for the oppressed. A balance must be found in democracy where there is both order and freedom. The rise of Fascism led to the death of millions of Jewish, disabled, Romani, and LGBTQ people. That can not be safer than Anarchy.

Anyone could become a perpetrator whether they believe it or not. The Milgram experiment showed that as long as there is someone in authority, people are more inclined to follow orders even if it means inflicting harm upon others. It suggests that people rely on guidance from people in power and if they put their trust in that person, they would be willing to follow their orders without much resistance. I feel like the Milgram experiment is a great representation of how easily obedience can be manipulated into violence.

People find comfort in order, whether it’s driven by hatred or love, and we are taught that straying from order is met with punishment. While the severity of the punishment fluctuates depending on the scale of the order, fear of punishment is one of the main reasons people choose to blindly abide by orders. People, also, would typically rather witness someone else be subjected to punishment than having to subject themselves to it, so if that means that they’re the punishers, then that may not be so bad anymore. This is how mass movements fueled by hatred gain traction so quickly in many cases. People don’t want to get caught up in the actions that they see being inflicted on others, so they will likely save themselves over the others. This resolution is even strong when bonded by hate. If you genuinely hate a certain group of people, you wouldn’t feel as bad hurting them as you would people you have no opinion on because there isn’t that emotional drive. When people hate something, there is a greater cause for inflicting pain upon them rather than just self-preservation.

Another massive motivator is the scapegoat theory, which says that people tend to look for someone else to blame for their actions or problems. This was posed during the Milgram experiment when one of the participants kept asking if something happened to the man being shocked, who would be to blame. After asking this question multiple times and being reassured each time that the scientist/researcher would be taking all of the blame, he was suddenly more willing to continue the experiment and upping the voltage. The same could be applied in real life. If someone knows they can get away with doing something inherently bad because someone else is taking the blame, they’re more likely to willingly partake in that bad thing. This is seen on a larger scale in mass movements, where so many people are doing destructive things with the belief the higher power will take the blame.

In Milgram’s experiment he tested whether people would physically harm another person if they were being ordered and the results of the experiments prove that this is the case. There were many factors that affected the “teacher” including emotional and physical distance and being under someone’s authority. This experiment suggested that as people our willingness to obey authority will allow us to disregard what we know to be wrong: hurting other people. From a young age we are trained to listen to those who are more experienced and hold more power than we do and this affects our ability to consciously rebel against authority. When something like this happens we try to justify our actions by putting the responsibility on the authority and not on ourselves. The article, “How the Nazi’s Defense of “Just Following Orders” Plays Out in the Mind” by Joshua Barajas suggests that people feel disconnected from their actions when they are ordered to do something. People distance themselves from what they are doing and experience “their actions more as “passive movements than fully voluntary actions” when they follow orders.” It says that it is like flipping a light switch, but the light takes a minute to actually turn on. Even though many scientists didn’t agree with Milton’s numbers, when they did their own experiments, they received similar results. On top of this, the experiments also show that if you are further, both physically and emotionally, from a person then you are more “willing” to inflict pain on them. It’s hard to care about the pain of another person if you have never met them or seen them before because it doesn’t affect you in any way. Many people even dehumanize the person they are hurting and try to justify their actions by saying that they deserve to be hurt, even if they don’t.

As a whole, although Milgram's experiments don’t take into account enough factors, they do explain why normal people are able to participate in violence, mass atrocities, and genocide. People are faced with the same pressure that the experiment participants faced when deciding whether to obey or disobey authority and they often distance themselves from those they harm. Many groups of people, like the Nazis, dehumanize their targeted “enemies,” which allows them to separate themselves even further from these people and their actions. They don’t feel as much responsibility because they don’t perceive themselves as harming other people, but rather inferior beings that they have no connection to and that they convince themselves deserve what they are getting.

I sometimes worry that humans are inherently evil, so the Milgram experiment did nothing to boost my optimism in humanity. There have been so many periods in history where people have done unthinkable things to each other. It’s easy to label historical aggressors as “evil” or “inhumane,” but how can something be inhumane if people keep doing it over and over again? Is violence a part of our nature?

I was thinking about this a lot after watching the Milgram experiment. The results of the experiment show how easy it is for average people to be coerced into harming others. Even the participants who disagreed with their orders and tried to resist still continued when encouraged by the “scientist” running the experiment. One moment that I thought was really impactful was the reaction of one of the volunteers who went all the way to 450 volts. When the experimenters revealed the true purpose of the exercise to him, it was evident that the man was facing a heavy internal struggle. They asked the man if there was anything the “learner” could have said that would make him stop. He was silent while realizing that, no, there was nothing the learner could have said to make him stop, and he resorted to avoiding the question altogether, insisting that he was worried about the learner the whole time.

This at least shows that people who do bad things may not be bad people, but are just not strong enough to resist. This is mentioned in Rethinking one of Psychology’s most infamous experiments by Cari Romm, where some researchers went back through Milgram’s records and found many gaps in his experiments. For example, the script was changed for different participants, some participants knew it was a hoax, and there were other inconsistencies that may have altered the result. However, when the researchers conducted their own version of the experiment, they found the same results, despite the two experiments being decades apart. The part that I found interesting in Romm’s article was their suggestion that the ability to disobey orders is a skill that can be learned, and that “all a person needs to learn is what to say and how to say it.” This is my preferred interpretation of the Milgram experiment, because the majority of people who went all the way to 450 volts tried to resist, but may have not known exactly how to.

I do think that Milgram’s experiment can help explain ordinary people’s involvement in violence, but I think that the message to take away from it is that resisting toxic orders is a skill that needs to be worked on. Milgram’s experiment is worrisome to me because if most ordinary people will harm others in a voluntary experiment, then they most definitely will if directed by a controlling government or if threatened with punishment. With this in mind, I think that we need to acknowledge that most people are not “bad,” but usually cause harm out of fear. It is important to learn about how low self-esteem and fear make people more susceptible to obeying orders, because we can see the same behavior within ourselves and notice how easily we obey orders without thinking in our everyday lives.