Milgram and Zimbardo
Stanly Milgram's and Philip Zimbardo's had similar results, both showing how humans obey authority. Milgram studied obedient on authority. Zimbardo studied why guards and prisoner play that role in prison. The Milgram and Zimbardo experiments showed how humans are so obedient that we are capable of hurting innocent people if ordered to do so. The study of obedience, conducted by Milgram, was to test how the subject would obey when ordered by the experimenter to adminater a shock to another human. Two experiments were conducted. The first used Yale undergraduates as subjects. The other used "ordinary" people as subjects. The results were shocking, both showed that around 60 percect of the subjects obeyed the experimenter completely. The subjects showed signs of distress throughtout the experiment, but continued because they were instructed to. These signs of distress indicate that the subjects knew what they were doing was wrong, but did the experiment anyways because they were ordered to so. Zimbardo studied why gaurds and prisoners become complant and authoritarium. The participants, 11 gaurds and 10 prisoners were also college students. The gaurds were told that "they must maintain "law and order" in this prison." The first step the gaurds were ordered to do was dehumaize the prisoners by taking their clothes and replacing their name with a number. By morning of the second day, a rebellion broke out. The gaurds felt it was their job to control the prison so they became more aggresive. The gaurds begin to harm, harass, and intimidate the prisoners. Because the prisoners were dehumanized, it seemed not as cruel to conflict pain to the prisoner. The gaurds acted in a way that was completely different from who they were. They acted this way because they were ordered to, they we being obedient. Milgram's and Zimbardo's experiments were considered unethical. However, they played a major role in discovering why humans are so obedient. Both experiments showed how