A part of Harper Perennial’s special “Resistance Library” highlighting classic works that illuminate our times: A special edition reissue of Stanley Milgram’s landmark examination of humanity’s susceptibility to authoritarianism. “The classic account of the human tendency to follow orders, no matter who they hurt or what their consequences.” — Washington Post Book World In the 1960s, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram famously carried out a series of experiments that forever changed our perceptions of morality and free will. The subjects—or “teachers”—were instructed to administer electroshocks to a human “learner,” with the shocks becoming progressively more powerful and painful. Controversial but now strongly vindicated by the scientific community, these experiments attempted to determine to what extent people will obey orders from authority figures regardless of consequences. “Milgram’s experiments on obedience have made us more aware of the dangers of uncritically accepting authority,” wrote Peter Singer in the New York Times Book Review. With an introduction from Dr. Philip Zimbardo, who conducted the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, Obedience to Authority is Milgram’s fascinating and troubling chronicle of his classic study and a vivid and persuasive explanation of his conclusions.

This edited volume demonstrates the vibrancy of the obedience paradigm by presenting 1990s' applications of the findings of Stanley Milgram's earlier research programme on obedience to authority.

"This rich volume explores the complex problem of obedience and conformity, re-examining Stanley Milgram's famous electric shock study, and presenting the findings of the most extensive empirical study on obedience toward authority since Milgram's era. Dolinski and Grzyb refer to their own series of studies testing various hypotheses from Milgram's and others' research, examining underlying obedience mechanisms as well as factors modifying the degree of obedience displayed by individuals in different situations. They offer their theoretical model explaining subjects' obedience in Milgram's paradigm and describe numerous examples of the destructive effect of thoughtless obedience both in our daily lives as well as in crucial historical events, stressing the need for critical thinking when issued with a command. Concluding with reflections on how to prevent the danger of destructive obedience to authority, this insightful volume will be fascinating reading for students and academics in social psychology, as well as those in fields concerned with complex social problems"--

Sergeant William Calley's defense of his behavior in the My Lai massacre and the widespread public support for his argument that he was merely obeying orders from a superior and was not personally culpable led Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton to investigate the attitudes toward responsibility and authority that underlie "crimes of obedience"--not only in military circumstances like My Lai but as manifested in Watergate, the Iran-Contra scandal, and the Kurt Waldheim affair. Their book is an ardent plea for the right and obligation of citizens to resist illegal and immoral orders from above.

Do you want more free book summaries like this? Download our app for free at https://www.QuickRead.com/App and get access to hundreds of free book and audiobook summaries. Learn about the controversial Milgram Experiment. Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist whose experiments on human subjects interrogated our understanding of human nature. His seminal text Obedience to Authority (1974) explores and analyzes his experiments along with his findings. The infamous Milgram Experiment examines the fundamental constructs of human nature, such as the motivations that drive us, our relationship with conscience, loyalty, and pain, and our willingness to inflict torture on others.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The experiment was to see how far a person would go in a concrete and measurable situation in which he was ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim. At what point would the subject refuse to obey the experimenter. #2 The Milgram experiment was designed to see how people would respond to a clear moral imperative. It found that a substantial proportion of subjects would continue to the last shock on the generator even when the person they were shocking begged them not to. #3 The most fundamental lesson of the experiment is that ordinary people, who are simply doing their jobs, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Many people were unable to realize their values in action, and continued participating in the experiment even though they disagreed with what they were doing. #4 The most common adjustment of thought in the obedient subject is to see himself as not responsible for his actions. He divests himself of responsibility by attributing all initiative to the experimenter, a legitimate authority.

Stanley Milgram is one of the most influential and widely-cited social psychologists of the twentieth century. Recognized as perhaps the most creative figure in his field, he is famous for crafting social-psychological experiments with an almost artistic sense of creative imagination – casting new light on social phenomena in the process. His 1974 study Obedience to Authority exemplifies creative thinking at its most potent, and controversial. Interested in the degree to which an “authority figure” could encourage people to commit acts against their sense of right and wrong, Milgram tricked volunteers for a “learning experiment” into believing that they were inflicting painful electric shocks on a person in another room. Able to hear convincing sounds of pain and pleas to stop, the volunteers were told by an authority figure – the “scientist” – that they should continue regardless. Contrary to his own predictions, Milgram discovered that, depending on the exact set up, as many as 65% of people would continue right up to the point of “killing” the victim. The experiment showed, he believed, that ordinary people can, and will, do terrible things under the right circumstances, simply through obedience. As infamous and controversial as it was creatively inspired, the “Milgram experiment” shows just how radically creative thinking can shake our most fundamental assumptions.