TO BE DONE ON WED. Dr. Stanley Milgram defined obedience as “the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose.” What do you think encourages obedience? Is it fear of punishment; a desire to please; or is it a need to go along with the group? As some students watched the film Obedience, they laughed at the people receiving the shocks. How do you account for that laughter? Is it because something was funny or was there another reason? Those who study human behavior say that laughter can be a way of relieving tension, showing embarrassment or expressing relief that someone else is “on the spot.” Which explanation is most appropriate in this case? How did some of the volunteers act as they administered the shocks? What pressures were placed on them as the experiment continued? How and when did they decide to stop? Did you identify with any of the volunteers you observed in Obedience? What did you learn that you didn't know before you watched this film?
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Fear of punishment contributes heavily to the act of obedience. I believe that it could, also, be possible that the teachers feared their own punishment; wondering if they would be given an electric shock if they refused to continue with the procedure. It is this simple act of looking out solely for yourself that contributes to obedience. I don't think that those distributing the shocks were laughing due to extreme amusement of the situation, but because they were uncomfortable and laughing to mask their unsettledness. We, as humans, are expected to obey orders. But once our morals are challenged, the act of obedience becomes increasingly conflicted. Sparing the embarrassment of standing up for your beliefs is easier than asserting yourself, in cases such as the Milgram Experiment. This experiment demonstrates how it is in our nature to conform to widely believed ideas and principles. It showed me how easy it can be for one to turn against their own conscience for the sake of blending in.
Many people follow orders giving from those in authority without questioning. They are afraid of being punished and just do as they are told. The teachers in this film had a lot of pressure from the man in authority right next to them telling them the experiment requires the teachers to continue until all questions are answered correctly. The teachers followed orders until their consciences kicked in and told them another human being could be seriously hurt. Some started to laugh as an initial reaction until they realized what they were doing was harmful. I was surprised it took some teachers so long before they stopped administrating the shocks. To me all the teachers were not strong enough to understand they were physically hurting someone else or to stop what they were doing. This film showed easily people are pursuaded to doing something they may or may not know is wrong because of obedience. I was surprised to see these people, both teachers and learners, didn't ask many questions about the experiment.
Obedience is encouraged by fear of punishment, desire to please, AND need to go along with the group. However, the individual themselves decide which reason of the three to encourage them to be obedient. Many choose each different path and some choose more than one or all three. When the teachers were given orders in this experiment some followed until their moral compass kicked in and others simply continued to follow the order to the end. The laughter produced by some of these people I believe was a sign of them being relived that it was not them in pain but someone else. Some of these people began to cry and struggle with themselves to continue on with the experiment as ordered. The pressure of the order was too overwhelming for some who continued on until they were ordered to stop while other refused orders after a specific point. I was in disbelief that some people followed the orders completely through to the end even after hearing the yells for help. The fact that these were ordinary people blindly following orders is scary to think about because something similar could occur today with people of the same attitude. The people who blindly followed orders failed to question authority and follow their moral compass.
The film made me angry as well as empathetic. I was shocked to see one of the teacher continuing the experiment to 450 volts. Even if he stopped his only concern was whose responsibility will it be if any mishap occurs. He was least bothered about the pain the other person is feeling. This was the part which made me angry. I was empathetic towards the people who were doing the experiment as they did the most they could just to obey. At the end I was glad that at least some people had the courage to refuse to do something wrong and stick to their humanitarian values. At least some refused to be a bystander and stopped the experiment though they weren't suppose to do so. Thus we must always think and question before obeying blindly any such thing.
I've read about this experiment in multiple courses before I took Facing History, but I don't think I ever really understood (emotionally) the toll it took on the "teacher". When I read articles about this experiment I thought to myself "that's too bad that the teachers didn't go check up on the student". After I watched this movie I was actually really upset watching the men not care for the person they're hurting, or too busy obeying orders to check up on them. I thought it was really interesting how such small details (how close the experimenter is to the teacher, etc) were able to change the data and surprising that something so small can change so much. I would like to think that I wouldn't care what the authority figure said and that I would go and check up on the learner, but in the actual situation with the experimenter so close, I don't know what I would do.
I think what encourages obedience is a combination of a fear of punishment, a desire to please, and to go along with the group; although I think it is different for every individual, meaning the desire to please may be much less appealing than their fear of punishment. I think laughter during the film could have been a natural coping response triggered to ease the empathy they feel for the person in the experiment. The volunteers in the experiment acted the same way, but probably more intensely since they were the ones who were tricked into believing they were actually creating pain for the learner, and they had to cope with that knowledge themselves. I think the way they coped was with laughter, other times they obviously looked nervous or tense, and then even some teachers began to cry. The pressures they faced during the experiment were their own conscious emphasizing with the pain the man they were shocking felt and the will to obey the authority figure. When one man started to cry as he was going through the experiment it actually surprised me, since towards the beginning he was laughing and then his mood totally shifted, and you caught a glimpse of the turmoil that was going on in his head. Some teachers stopped as soon as they heard the learner yell to stop the experiment, however they were the minority. Most of the people doing the teaching carried out the entire experiment. One thing i learned about the experiment that i didn't know before was how capable the Holocaust is to happen again, just by seeing how easily swayed people are by authority, going with the group, having a fear of punishment, or whatever the cause really may be.
The fear of taking responsibility for your actions is the driving force of obedience. People will do what they are told because it is part of human nature. Despite their conscience telling the people to stop the experiment many of them remained involved. Personally I don't believe that the teacher's are morally strong enough to stand up to authority and know when things aren't right. Even when there is a lot of pressure it's important to remain true to yourself and what you believe in.
I think the fear of being isolated and fear of punishment is what encourages obedience. The fact that the "teachers" would continue with the experiment even after they the students told them they'd had enough, was a perfect example of how obedient those teachers since they didn't want to disappoint the authority. I felt bad when people laughed but I think the only reason they laughed was to be able to deal with the situation . It was good to see that not all of the teachers continued with the experiment once they heard the student had had enough. I hope that If I am ever in that situation, that I'll stand up for what is right and not be pressured.
I think obedience depends on who is giving the instructions. It it mostly fear of punishment or even fear of disappointment. I think that when the student would yell for the first time the teacher would laugh because they didn't really understand the severity of what they were doing, but when the student was begging for them to stop they realize that it was no laughing matter and what they were doing was wrong. Some of the people may have said that they wanted to stop, but they were not strong enough to do so and were persuaded by the people controlling the experiment to continue the shocking. I think this experiment is a great way of showing how so many people are just followers and do not have the will and strength to stand up to leaders.
I was absent
I think that many of administrators and students laughed in the beginning because the voltage of the shock was pretty low that it might have been a little funny to hear the reaction. But eventually after maybe the second or third shock, it was no longer funny and the reactions of laughter were definitely nervous laughter. The administers wanted to stop after hearing the reaction of the student inside the other room but felt the pressure to keep going because they were instructed to do so, and like the mentioned in class, its human nature to be obedient. Many of the teachers decided to stop when they heard the cries of the student in pain and refused to keep continuing with the experiment, which made me relieved. I learned that it is so easy to be obedient by watching this film. I also learned that although obedience is nature, you need to stick to your morals and decide to stop being obedient when the actions being ask cross the line. It’s important to not loose your identity when trying to please others or a crowd.
One man who was a teacher during the experiment continued giving shocks to the learner at higher voltages simply because he knew that it wouldn't be his responsibility if the learner got hurt. This drives me to believe that obedience is shown as long as that person will not face consequences. I think that the laughter from some of the teachers was nervous laughter to relieve the obvious tension and anxiety that they were experiencing. I feel the same way about any laughter that came from students too. One man who went all the way to the highest voltage actually began to cry because he didn't want to go on yet he still did. I learned that it is very very difficult to go against a person with authoritative power and sometimes it seems that obedience is the only option. I thought that a good message of the experiment was to not let obedience take over your morals and values and to stick to your own identity no matter how hard that may be.
Obedience is something that catches up to everyone in life and it's a parts of human nature. It's tough to have someone you trust greatly and have no reason not to believe them tell you something and not do it. The teacher or person who was asking the question and sending the shocks continually surprised me by their constant actions. More than half the teachers went up to 450 volts and the human response ended at at like 345 volts which was astonishing. This all relates so nicely to the work that Hitler had done because he was controlling people and they weren't going to say no to any sort of command. Peoples morals aren't strong enough when they get matched up with really true force. It's quite sickening to hear about the pain that people would inflict on someone else, strictly because they were following orders. I found it to be disturbing to hear but found it was interesting that anyone would go to the extent that they did.
After watching the Milgram experiment, I believe there isn't one answer to why people kept going on with the shocks and obeying what the tester said. The teacher could be experiencing the fear of punishment, fear of not going along with the group, or the desire to please all at the same time. For me as a third person and not being involved in the experiment at all it was definitely hard to believe that people kept going on with the experiment even when the student stopped responding or complained about heart failure. I would hope I would act in a much better way then they did however I can't say I am positive that I would. The laughter that some of the teachers had most likely was because of the stress of the situation. Being the teacher in that situation must have been very uncomfortable and one of the teachers was to the point where he was almost crying.
This follows along with the last movie we watched because people are showing how mindlessly obedient they can be. certain people are like sail boat and go whichever way the wind chooses. in the experiment people are told to administer shocks that they themselves wouldn't like to have administered to themselves. They don't want to give the shocks but do anyways because that's what they are told. the right thing to do is stand up for how you feel regardless of what an authority figure tells you. Lesson: use your own mind if something doesn't sit right then it isn't.
I was absent for this assignment
I believe that fear of punishment Is the greatest reason to obey because no one wants to be punished. Of course obeying to fit in is another big reason because people don't want to be singled out; they want to belong to a group so much that they bring themselves to obey what others tell them to do. Of course this case doesn't happen with everyone but it certainly happens. In the Milgram experiment, the teachers were told to shock their students if they got the answers wrong. There were those who stopped early because they saw what this was turning into and they stepped up to stop it but others did not and continued the torment. There was one man who laughed while the other was in pain but I don't believe he was laughing because it was funny; he was laughing because he was very tense and was trying to release that stress. The teachers were very uncomfortable in the positions they were in because they were tormenting the students at every wrong answer. People do things to become noticed or to fit in and sometimes they even go against themselves to be in a group; even if it means obeying to something very wrong.
I believe why people obey is dependent on the situation. It could be either the desire to please, fear of punishment, or the need to go along with the group, or maybe even a combination of those.In the case of the Milgram experiment i believe
what drove the teachers to obey was the desire to please. They had committed to an experiment that they were paid to do and they had an authority figure telling them to continue.Also the teacher was being told that what they were doing was not truly harmful to the learner.As for the laughter i believe that it was a sign of a conscience. The students watching may have laughed because they were made really uncomfortable or even a little shocked when they heard the mans screams.I feel like laughter was an instant reaction of their conscience being conflicted with what they saw, and that may be the same reason the teachers laughed.I don't think that the laughter at any point was because there was anything comical about the situation. It seems inappropriate, but its just a human way of relieving the tension they're feeling from the pressure of the authority and the need to obey conflicting with their sense of morality.I was pretty surprised when the film stated that 50% of participants administered what wold be a lethal shock of 450 volts. Its kind of ridiculous to me that their need to obey so easily overpowered them especially knowing that they heard fairly desperate screams coming from the learner.how do you not react to that? If you know that you're causing them pain you also have the power to stop.It just surprises me that the drive to obey is powerful enough to keep someone who has full knowledge of the harm they're causing too keep going despite morality or their conscious.
I think that the drive to be obedient is promoted by a mixture of fearing the consequences of not completing the task at hand, as well an overwhelming desire to please that overrides any moral and ethical values. I think that the students who laughed at what was happening with the person receiving the shocks, laughed for the same reason some of the test administrators laughed while the person on the other end was being shocked: it was a nervous laughter brought on by feelings of self shame for being so weak. The laughter was to block out the other voice of pain and to make it seem like to everyone else that it was no big deal to them. They laughed because they were not quite sure how else to react when they were the ones inflicting the pain. A couple of the volunteers hesitantly continued to administer the shocks until either the guy on the other side demanded they stop, or they felt they had reached their limitations they themselves had set. Almost all of the teachers laughed nervously after each yell of the learner. The last one we saw, went all the way ahead and went from laughing to crying. He was neither able to stop giving the shocks, nor stop internally torturing himself. His main concern was that he did not wish to be responsible for whatever happened to that man with the heart condition. Even as many of the teachers hesitated while giving the shocks and insisted that they check on the man, the person in charge said that the experiment must be completed. Some refused to go on. Others, about half of them, went on anyway. One man put his own limit on and refused to go after that. Others stopped when the learner started yelling. I'm sure each one imagined the 45 volt shock they all received. I'm not sure if i identified with any of the volunteers or not. To be honest, I'm not sure where my limit would have been, because I too, tend to follow orders with an almost unhealthy desire to please. I would like to think however that I would have stopped at 45 until I myself received a higher voltage first. Either that, or I might have stopped as soon as the learner started yelling. Then again, maybe I should never have started anyway.
I thought that the Milgram experiment was very interesting and shocking. I could not believe that 50 percent of the teachers in the experiment gave the leaners a shock up to the point of 450 volts. The teachers that stood up to the experiment or and said that they would not go any further because the they didn't want hurt people made me feel a little better knowing that some people were able to say no. The one man who they showed that when through with the experiment made me shocked. I couldn't believe he would continue with the experiment when the leaner who had been screaming stopped responding. I at least thought the man would go in and check on the person to make sure they were alive. This documentary should how easily people will follow directions even when they know what they are doing is wrong.
A lot of people need to fulfill the need to follow orders. It makes them feel right with themselves. This experiment was extremely interesting. I found it even more interesting that some people with go all the way to 450v and then back down again just to obey orders. The "teachers" were fully aware of how much pain the "student" was in through the prerecorded noise. Some did refuse to go on with the experiment after the student yelled just a couple of times which was really impressive. But others who went all the way through and even laughed, was extremely disapointing.
I think that fear of punishment and altercation as well as the desire to please others encourages obedience. No one wants to upset authority by refusing to do what they are telling you to do. In the Milgram Experiment, I think the teachers were expressing nervous laughter to relieve tension. In some teachers that laughter turned to crying because they obviously felt uncomfortable administering electric shocks to the learners. I can understand why some of the teachers didn't stop even though they felt wrong. If someone was repeatedly telling me that it was essential that I continue, I probably would. However I know that I would have walked out when I heard the continuous yelling of the learner.
I think that all of these factors, a need to go along with the group, a desire to please, and a fear of punishment contribute to the encouragement of obedience. In the case of the Milgram experiment, I think that the desire to please was the most powerful factor encouraging obedience, as the scientist insisted continuously that the subjects continue the test when they began to worry about the other participant. I feel that laughter commonly relieves nervousness, so this may be why some students laughed during the experiment. At the same time, some people do laugh at the displeasure of others, but I hope that this was not the case among the students watching the film.
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