BA 3102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Stanley Milgram, Milgram Experiment

• School: Temple University
• Department: Business Administration
• Course: BA 3102
• Professor: Anthony Seeton

Document Summary

The primetime movie basic instincts is a documentary that recreates and analyzes the effects of the milgram experiment on obedience and authority. Psychologist stanley milgram conducted an experiment where participants followed orders from an authoritative figure to continue administering electric shocks to an unknown person in the adjacent room. Milgram conducted this experiment to determine the lengths to which individuals would go to obey a higher authority even if it meant they were harming another person. The experimented individuals were in pairs of two, the teacher and the learner. The teacher was in charge of asking questions and if the learner gave the wrong answer, the teacher had to give him/her an electric shock. The electric shock increased in voltage with every wrong answer. With this study the experimenters discovered that when the learner screamed or showed signs of pain, the teacher would look back at the authoritative figure to determine if he/she should continue.