Analytical essay example
The Milgram Experiment
- Subject
- Psychology
- Type
- Analytical essay
- Citation style
- APA 7
- Length
- 3 pages
About this sample
The paper examines Stanley Milgram's obedience experiment and asks whether authority can override empathy and sympathy. It uses the Holocaust and Hitler's control over his followers to frame the question, then describes the procedure in which teachers were directed to administer shocks to a learner. It concludes that many participants kept following orders despite their discomfort, while acknowledging that the reasons behind Hitler's followers cannot be determined exactly.
- Obedience to authority
- Milgram obedience experiment
- Holocaust and Nazi compliance
- Empathy versus authority
- Experimental procedure and shock study
How it opens
The point of the experiment is to basically show if power and authority could over rule empathy and sympathy. If a figure of authority gives you an order that you must obey, will you listen or come to the point of common feelings and sense.
A psychologist by the name of Stanley Milgram thinks the holocaust was an interesting topic so he designed this test to figure out and further understand why the holocaust was allowed to act so cruel upon their inmates and so many people followed alongside Hitler. Milgram’s believed theory was that people ae usually persuaded heavily to obey over ruling authority figures. “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?” In 1961, he started conducting a experiment of obedience. “When the learner gave an incorrect response, the volt would increase by 15 volts intervals. Some teachers went to the maximum of 450 volts. At times the "teacher" questioned the experiment but continued even though some were obviously extremely uncomfortable in doing so.”( Stanley Milgram's Experiment. Marsden S. & Melander M. 1/20/01).
These experiment took place with many different people but it was always a two person study. Two people, one random and one who actually knows about the study. The choosing was rigged so that the person who knew about the experiment was consensual while the person who was tricked into thinking it was just a study of memory.
The opening section, transcribed from the PDF. The full paper continues below.
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Using an example well
Read it for how the paper is built, not for wording to reuse: how the introduction frames the question, how each paragraph moves from a claim to evidence, and how sources are cited in APA 7. Submitting any part of it as your own work would be plagiarism, and it is written for a different brief than yours.
Writing one yourself? Read the guide How to write an essay and the APA format guide.