Introduction to Psychology

August 4th 2013javascript:activate_paper

Written assignment #02 for the course PSY001, "Introduction to Psychology"

In this written assignment, I will compare the Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures and the initial conformity experiment of Asch; both are experiments that can be pooled under the general term "Obedience to Authority" or "Conformity". I have chosen these experiments because they have helped me, as I was in highschool, to understand the dynamics of national socialism. Being a German-French descendent, national socialism has been of course an issue in German secondary school; but until I have heard of those experiments, it was for me something that apparently something only cruel, sadistic and disturbed people could do to their fellow people and nothing that would concern me in any way. This changed after I heard of those experiments.

Regarding the Milgram experiment on obedience to authority, according to Author unknown; "Milgram experiment", "Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 July 2013. Web. 04 August 2013; the purpose was to find an answer to the question "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" - hence, to find if persons would comply to orders given even if the orders would severely harm others. In this experiment, there were three roles: The experimenter, the "teacher" - a role filled by the volunteer - and the "learner" - a role filled seemingly by another volunteer, but it was, in reality, a confederate. The "teacher" was told that his duty was to give the "learner" electrical shocks for each wrong answer the "learner" gave, and the intensity of the electrical shocks were increased to potential lethal intensities. Even if many people felt uncomfortable, in the first set of experiments, 65 percent of the participants gave the "learner" the experiment's final massive 450-volt shock. They were only told by the "experimenter" to continue the experiment, they were not treated with any reprisal whatsoever. Milgram himself stated in "Milgram, Stanley (1974). "The Perils of Obedience". Harper's Magazine. Archived from the original on 2011-05-14. Abridged and adapted from Obedience to Authority" that "Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."

On the other hand, the initial conformity experiment of Asch was less dramatic (and, due