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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
The behavior of individuals is known to be impacted by their social circumstances. In this 4 page paper the writer looks at the way in which behavior may change, or be influenced, as a result of two different social circumstances, where an individual is subject to perceived authority, and where an individual is given authority to exercise. The paper examines the Milgram experiments to discuss the influence of perceived authority. The controversial Stanford prison experiment is then discussed in order to assess the way that the granting of authority to an individual may impact on their behavior patterns. The bibliography cites 3 sources.
Page Count:
4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: TS14_TEbehmilgram.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
over many years. However, it is also known that the behaviour of individuals will be influenced by situational factors; behaviour changes and adapts to different social situations. There have been
a numerous studies undertaken looking at this aspect social psychology, which have clearly demonstrated alterations in behavioural patterns depending on the situations in which individuals find themselves. This paper will
look at two different social situations where individuals are placed in a position where they are subject to instructions from someone they believe to have authority, and when individuals are
given authority over others. The Milgram Experiments looked at the way in which individuals would respond to authority and the way in which this impacts on behaviour. The impact
of the individual being subject to instructions from someone they deem to have authority is like to result in compliance due to that perception of authority.
In experiments conducted at Yale, Milgram enticed people into punishing a subject for not learning pairs of words (Milgram, 1975). The punishment was the administration of
an electric shock to the subject; the shock could range anything from 15 to 450 volts (Milgram, 1975). A surprisingly high number of volunteers complied with the instructions they were
given, many were prepared to continuing giving electric shocks which could be potentially lethal (Milgram, 1975). This was undertaken with the participants convinced they were inducing real shocks (in actual
fact it was an actor with no shocks occurring) (Burger, 1999). The only reason they had for this was the apparent authority of the psychologist who asked them to undertake
these actions (Burger, 1999). The sample used has generally been accepted as representative of the general population (Burger, 1999). There were some criticisms
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