The Justification of Responsibility 2.
Over two decades ago Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo administered experiments that tested the psychological impact of higher authority on people's choices. People sought to obey their roles more strictly when they were threatened as opposed to when they had a choice to obey them. In these experiments it can be seen that people will go against their true morals in order to impress or please their authority. The two experiments prove that once there is an established higher lever of authority, it is easy for people to justify their responsibilities as human being.
The Milgram and Zimbardo experiments both portray the underlying affects of authority on what should be people's natural decisions. In the Milgram experiment the study analyzed people's reactions when being ordered to shock complete strangers. Zimbardo's experiment evaluated the possible transformations that people undertake when placed in a prison environment. Though these two studies both portray adjustment in people's behavior under stressful circumstances, the effect of the experiments and psychological outlook of those involved differ as a result of the varying roles exercised.
In the Milgram experiment, conducted at Yale University, there were three main roles: the experimenter, teacher, and learner. The learner is put into a room and strapped into a chair. He must remember pairs of words and, if he is not capable of doing so, receives shock treatment from the teacher as punishment. The true experiment, however, lies with the teacher as the learner is just an actor and actually experiences no pain at all. In most situations, once the teacher increases the voltage, the learner begins screaming or demonstrating violent signs of pain causing the teacher extreme nervousness. The .
The Justification of Responsibility 3.
experiment is then altered to allow the teachers to administer their own level of voltage.
