Post 6: Milgrim Study

Five years from now, after I'm hopefully well equilibrated financially and enjoyably stimulated by my career, I will likely still benefit from lessons learned in PSY 1001.  In particular, remembering the upsetting results of the Milgrim study may help me to be a better leader and moral individual.  The striking results of the Milgrim study, which reported that 50% of its participants while under the instruction of a single researcher administered potentially dangerous voltages of electric shock to confederate participants, revealed man's tendency for unquestioning compliance to authority.  These findings are quite disturbing and unsettling to me because, when honest with myself, I admit that I am compliant to authority.  I feel I would be susceptible to control by an authority figure, and I would likely push myself passed my moral boundaries by the instruction of a higher rank.  Acknowledging my susceptibility to this form of control is the first step to avoiding its affliction.  Consciously defining my moral boundaries and determining when or if I should ever overstep these boundaries may also help safeguard me from authority influence.  Also, the lessons in our textbook describing the roots for bystander non-intervention help by dismissing pluralistic ignorance and the diffusion of responsibility.  Remembering that others may feel the same way and that I am partially, if not equally responsible, for the outcome produced by a group  in which I participate, may help my avoid authority influences that might otherwise have caused me to act in a manner against my moral nature.