Briefly outline the procedure and results of Stanley Milgram

Briefly outline the procedure and results of Stanley Milgram\'s classic obedience study. Evaluate Milgram\'s procedure with respect to the ethical guidelines of contemporary psychology THL C55 Path: p Words:0 QUESTION 2 Define cognitive dissonance. Review Festinger and Carlsmith\'s classic demonstration of cognitive dissonance, being sure to identify the independent and dependent variables in their study. Offer a real- world example involving cognitive dissonance and indicate two ways in which the dissonance may be reduced

Solution

One of the pioneer studies in psychology is that of Milgram’s study on obedience. He was a psychologist at Yale who conducted an experiment that focused on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. The idea was to study the motivating factors of the accused involved in the World War II who claimed to simply follow instructions of their superiors. Each participant was paired with another person in the experiment and they drew ‘lots’ to find out who would be the learner and teacher. The learner (a confederate called Mr. Wallace) was taken into a room and had electrodes attached to his arms, and the teacher and researcher went into a room next door that contained an electric shock generator and a row of switches marked from 15 volts (Slight Shock) to 375 volts (Danger: Severe Shock) to 450 volts. At the beginning of the experiment, they were introduced to another participant, who was a confederate of the experimenter (Milgram). The “learner” (Mr. Wallace) was strapped to a chair with electrodes. After he has learned a list of word pairs given him to learn, the \"teacher\" tests him by naming a word and asking the learner to recall its partner/pair from a list of four possible choices.

The teacher is told to administer an electric shock every time the learner makes a mistake, increasing the level of shock each time. There were 30 switches on the shock generator marked from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 (danger – severe shock). The result of the experiment was shocking. They illustrated that 65% (two-thirds) of participants (i.e., teachers) continued to the highest level of 450 volts. All the participants continued to 300 volts. It was then iterated that Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being. This further made him classify that people operate on these two principles in terms of the agency they possess: autonomous state, wherein they take responsibility of own actions versus agentic state wherein they put the onus of consequences of actions on the person providing orders and merely tend to follow their instruction. This provides the person passing orders with the agency of another person’s actions. However, later on, especially in today’s scenario wherein the mental, emotional and physical well-being of individuals is of a higher priority, it has become extremely difficult to conduct an experiment of such nature. This is evident from the fact that even during the production of films, a disclaimer regarding the safety and security, not only of human beings but animals is assured by those safeguarding these. Ethical guidelines and principles are to be strictly adhered to while conducting any kind of psychological experiment. This means that anything that tends to hamper the well-being of an individual cannot be undertaken during an experiment. In this case however, Milgram’s research led to a later outrage where his methodology and procedure of conducting research was heavily condemned. He risked the lives of participants to a great degree by subjecting them to electric shocks.

Cognitive dissonance is described as a state of extreme discomfort that arises when the belief system which is strongly held by an individual is challenged by evidence that suggests otherwise. Therefore, to maintain the state of balanced psyche, people tend to use various defense mechanisms such as rationalizing this or denying it. For instance, a person believes that it is bad to steal office supplies, whereas one attempts to rationalize this by telling oneself that it is okay to steal because one deserves this much after serving the organization for so long. The manner in which the dissonance can be reduced is either to succumb to this defense & maintaining the psychic equilibrium upon stealing thereafter. Another way out could be by reinforcing the idea to self that morally, it is incorrect to steal and therefore prevent oneself from the pitfall of using defense.