Obedience to Authority
Author of Book: Stanley Milgram
Summary
Obedience to authority is a book that was revolutionary to modern psychology. Shortly after world war 2 many people were shocked that the Nazis could have gone through with such horrible actions against the Jewish people among others. It didn't make sense how no one disagreed and said no to their orders to exterminate the Jews. Stanley Milgram set up his obedience to authority experiment to explain how and why the Nazis were able to pull off the horrible acts they did. Milgram proposed that simple obedience was keeping them from speaking out and it in fact was what was making them follow orders. Milgram explores the idea that we as humans live in a world where disobedience is looked down upon. It also shows us that, even when it goes against our own morals, most of the time we will obey others whom we believe to be in authority.
Stanley Milgram
How This experiment relates to the real world
This experiment has great amounts of application to the real world. As this experiments primary topic was to explain how the great tragedies of world war two could have happened this experiment was created to explain things that happen in the real world. The only difference between what was going on in this experiment and what was going on in the concentration camps of world war two is that no one was actually physically being hurt. It is actually very shocking and a little scary to realize that you could kill someone just simply in the name of obedience. However, unfortunately it is true that when faced with an authority figure most likely you will do what they say.