Summary

Stanley Milgram in The Perils of Obedience wrote about how different people act dealing with obedience and authority. Milgram states that obedience is a main part of our everyday lives. Without authority our lives would be very chaotic. Milgram talks about how obedience to authority dates back to ancient times, and that it has always been around. However, people obey differently depending on how severe the consequences are.

Milgram describes the experiment he constructed at Yale University where he wanted to see how far a person would hurt someone when ordered to by authority. The subject was the one inflicting the pain on the victim, who after the experiment was revealed as an actor.

The experiment Milgram designed consisted of two people who were asked to participate in a study of memory and learning. One is assigned to be the teacher while the other is the learner. They are told that it is an experiment on the effects of punishment on learning. The learner is put into an electric chair and strapped down so little movement is allowed. They are informed that they will be read a list of word pairs and that they have to pick the right answer or else they will be shocked.

However, the main part of this experiment is the teacher, who has no idea that the learner is actually an actor. The teacher is set up behind this panel and is ordered to increase the shock each time the learner answers the question wrong. The learner is trained to act accordingly at different volts of elctricy. The whole point of Milgram’s experiment was to see how far the person would last causing pain to someone, when ordered to by the experimenter.

Gretchen Brandt, a medical technician at Yale Medical School, who was described by Milgram as attractive, was very hesitant of the situation. She promptly told the experimenter that there was no way they could go on. Even after the experimenter insisted for her to go on, Brandt refused and the experiment was ended. She did not want to be...