Microblogs #6 - Obedience to Authority

References:
Title: Obedience to Authority
Author: Stanley Milgram
Editor:

Chapter #1:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram describes the events in WWII that gestated the experiment, as well as some of the difficulties with finding an answer to this question. He then describes in brief the surprising findings of this experiment

Discussion:
This chapter was a solid beginning to the book. Milgram clearly provides his reasoning behind beginning this now controversial experiment, and so far I can agree with his principles.


Chapter #2:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram describes the experimental setup from invitation to debriefing and details how the participants were dealt with in each. He also describes briefly some of the iterations they went through in the development of the experiment.

Discussion:
This chapter was interesting because we got to see the scientific basis behind the experiment. I enjoyed seeing some of the photos of the equipment and people behind the act. Also, I find it interesting that they had to scale up the experiment to show less amazing results, instead of trying to pad it to get more amazing results.


Chapter #3:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram describes a survey he performed, in which he asked a series of psychiatrists, students, and other people to predict how they and others would perform. They believed that very few people would go to the max level and that they definitely would not.

Discussion:
This chapter is interesting mostly because I already know the results. If I didn't already know the results, I would probably be caught off-guard just as much as the people who took this poll. However, knowing the outcome, the irony and foreshadowing here is quite interesting to watch.


Chapter #4:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram details the influences of distance to the subject on obedience. He finds that the closer the subject and the victim were, the more they identified with him, and vice-versa. He also gives a few reasons why this could be.

Discussion:
This chapter was interesting because I didn't know that they tried changing how much the subject and victim interacted from any of the other books. I was also equally surprised by the fact that even when the subjects had to force the victim to take shocks, more than a quarter of subjects went to maximum power.


Chapter #5:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram describes the reactions of many of the subjects of the experiments. While he doesn't show any anecdotes from the least proximity experiment, he shows a large gamut of responses from different people.

Discussion:
This chapter was interesting because, like in Skinner's Box, we can see how the differing values of each subject not only affect how they respond during the experiment, but also how they are affected afterwards. I was actually not surprised at all when the military man followed through with barely any pushing.


Chapter #6:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram describes a few other versions of the experiment they attempted to discern how much differing social factors had on obedience. Some of the changes they tried were female subjects, non-local scientist, and having the subjects choose the voltage. Many of them had no effect on the results, but a few had drastic results.

Discussion:
This chapter was interesting because we got to see many different theories as to the powers of authority. My favorite part was seeing the passive-aggressive behavior displayed by the subjects when the scientist character was not in the room.


Chapter #7:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram describes more examples of reactions given by participants. In this case, the participants were involved in the special situations shown in chapter 6. Most of the focus is on the women subjects in this set.

Discussion:
This chapter was interesting because we get to see more human reactions to this unreal situation. I don't have a favorite out of this batch, but that's because there are quite a few that I thought were quite intriguing responses.


Chapter #8:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram describes further modifications to the experiment. In this grouping, they tested different combinations of scientist and ordinary man as victim and authority. They found that the ordinary man could not wield authority as the scientist did, but the scientist could easily become the victim.

Discussion:
This was interesting because of how clear-cut the responses were to authority as victim and victim wanting the shocks. In both cases the shocking did not continue 100% of the time. I figured that if the victim wanted to continue, there would be a decent chance that someone would continue even just one more up the board, but apparently not.


Chapter #9:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram describes two more modifications to his experiment involving the influences of others in our ability to obey. In these modifications, he tests both the effects of allowing someone else to do the dirty work and having others disobey first.

Discussion:
Even though it seemed obvious, seeing that people were more likely to quit when someone else did first was interesting to see. Additionally, finding out that having someone else doing the bad activity decreased the disobedience rate was intriguing as well.


Chapter #10:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram describes his theories of why people are obedient. He describes it using a robotic model, as well as an evolutionary model, and then uses these to define a state of mind he calls the agentic state.

Discussion:
This chapter was interesting because we finally get to see the theories he creates to manage the data. I have to admit that the descriptions of both models bored me a little bit, but I am curious to see how he will tie it together in the next chapter.


Chapter #11:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram describes the agentic state from its inception to how we enter and exit it. He describes the factors that teach us to obey when we are young, what the agentic state feels like to us, and the factors that keep us from exiting it.

Discussion:
This chapter was interesting because as he was listing off the factors, I was able to think of situations that I had been involved with that I had felt that way in. I was also interested to learn of why we have so much trouble disobeying.


Chapter #12:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram begins to theorize how disobedience begins through the process of strain. He describes some of the methods we use to reduce the strain and how it may be a positive thing.

Discussion:
This chapter was interesting because he actually turned around the perspective. Suddenly, he begins to describe disobedience as a positive, and then describes obedience in many situations as being negative.


Chapter #13:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram describes the most often hypothesis to counter his theory, aggression by the participants, and gives his own rebuttal. He describes why most people think that aggression is the true cause, and why his idea works better.

Discussion:
This chapter was interesting because we get to see how he counters what seems to be the obvious explanation for the behavior in his experiments. I liked how he gave examples not only from his experiments but also others to show how incorrect that hypothesis is.


Chapter #14:
Summary:
In this chapter, Milgram continues to defend his hypothesis by showing that the claims that his method is incorrect are wrong. He shows that he did select a diverse population, they did believe they were administering real shocks, and that the laboratory can be extrapolated to real life.

Discussion:
I liked this chapter mostly because I was impressed by Milgram's arguments. I thought of a few of these arguments, and was pleased enough by his rebuttals to believe that the experiment was accurate.