Throughout history, we have seen many different names that are not well mentioned anywhere. When we say that, one of the first names that comes to mind is Adolf Hitler. Because the dictator, who is remembered for his cruelty and inhuman acts, went down in the history of Germany and the world as an unforgettable stain.
This name, who was responsible for the deaths of millions of people, died in 1945. After that, many Nazi officers were caught and brought before the judge. Among these officials was Adolf Eichmann, who inspired the Milgram experiment, which is the subject of our content.
So what exactly did Eichmann do and how did he inspire the experiment?
Eichmann’s mission in Germany at the time was to ensure that millions of Jews were sent to camps. In other words, Eichmann was responsible for the continuity of transportation. As a result, he sent millions of people to their deaths. But when he went before the judge for this, he defended himself by saying the following words like other soldiers:
“I just followed orders”
As you can imagine, this defense did not work very well. failed, and Eichmann was executed after a while. But these words prompted a professor named Stanley Milgram to set up his own experiment. Is it only soldiers who tend to throw responsibility on authority when people are asked about their actions?
Or can the people who pass by us every day also take actions that cross the line when they are not responsible? Let’s see the answer in Milgram’s experiment.
This experiment, which aimed to show how to submit to authority, was presented in a different way so that participants could be found:
- Announcement of the Milgram experiment
In order to make the experiment more attractive, it was said that it was an experiment on the way learning and memory work. In addition, participants would receive 4 dollars for 1 hour they will allocate. That’s about $38 today. As a result, different people from different segments of society were found.
These people, who were chosen from different parts of the society, were people who did not have psychological disorders and continued their daily lives in the city. So you might think that people who pass you every day on the road or on public transport are taking part in the experiment.
There are three people in the experiment, but only one subject:
- E: Supervisor, T: Subject, L: Actor
The professor who carried out the experiment, who in this context is Milgram, distributes the roles to two people by drawing lots. In this context, one of these people is a teacher and the other is a student. Of course, this is the face of the matter.
Because the person who participated as a subject was accompanied by the previously informed actor. So he knew what was going to happen. In this context, both of the cards actually wrote the teacher, and the subject was sitting in the teacher’s chair anyway.
The student (actor) was tied to a device similar to an electric chair, and the teacher had to keep in mind the pairs of words he read:
For every mistake he made, he was told by in subsequent faults, an increasing amount of electricity was given in multiples of 15. In addition, there were phrases under the switches indicating the amount of danger. This amount was moving up to 450 volts. The experiment, which the actor started with correct answers, started to progress with incorrect answers after a point.
At this point, only small moans could be heard, as the actors and subjects could not see each other. But as the amount of volts increased, louder sounds began to come from inside. After a while, they even turned into begging. In some variations of the experiment, the actors even said they had heart problems (as a result of the experiment, of course) and were worried about it.
While the subjects were electrified, tension peaked:
At a certain point, the voices of the actors stopped. In this process, the participants were not satisfied with electrifying when the actors could not know the questions. There was even some crying at this point and they told the supervisor to stop the experiment and they would refund the money. But they were allowed to continue the experiment anyway.
Not using brute force, but with just a few sentences
- Please continue.
- You must continue due to the experiment.
- It is really important that you continue.
- You have no other choice, you have to continue.
These were the sentences the supervisor said to the subject in cases of opposition. If the subject insisted again after the fourth sentence, the experiment would have ended. But very few people seem to have reached this point. So what happened as a result?
Of the 40 participants in the experiment, 65 percent, or 26, reached the terminal lethal 450 volts. In addition, all participants were at least 300 volts, which is a very dangerous level.
Prior to this experiment, Milgram had reached out to a number of psychology experts about people’s reactions
All of these people said they would not be silent on the subjects’ cries for help and would end the experiment at that point. . But the results showed the opposite.
Another point to note was that Milgram told the participants that they were not responsible for the outcome of the experiment. In cases where they said they were responsible, the participants left before the experiment even started. What are your thoughts on this experiment?
Sources: Bebar Science, Evolution Tree, Behavioral Scientist
5951
