Obedience to authority : an experimental view
In the 1960s Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram famously carried out a series of experiments that forever changed our perceptions of morality and free will. The subjects--or "teachers"--were instructed to administer electroshocks to a human "learner," with the shocks becoming progressively more powerful and painful. Controversial but now strongly vindicated by the scientific community, these experiments attempted to determine to what extent people will obey orders from authority figures regardless of consequences. "Milgram's experiments on obedience have made us more aware of the dangers of uncritically accepting authority," wrote Peter Singer in the New York Times Book Review. Featuring a new introduction from Dr. Philip Zimbardo, who conducted the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, Obedience to Authority is Milgram's fascinating and troubling chronicle of his classic study and a vivid and persuasive explanation of his conclusions
Print Book, English, 2019
First Harper Perennial Modern Thought View all formats and editions
Harper Perennial Modern Thought, New York, NY, 2019
xix, 282 pages : illustrations ; 18 cm
9780062930828, 0062930826
1078564308
The dilemma of obedience
Method of inquiry
Expected behavior
Closeness of the victim
Individuals confront authority
Further variations and controls
Individuals confront authority II
Role permutations
Group effects
Why obedience? An analysis
The process of obedience: Applying the analysis to experiment
Strain and disobedience
An alternative theory: Is aggression the key?
Problems of method
Epilogue
Originally published: New York : Harper & Row, 1974