How Do We Develop a Moral Sense?
Moral Compass
Procedure
Volunteers were recruited for a lab experiment investigating “learning”. Participants were 40 males, aged between 20 and 50, whose jobs ranged from unskilled to professional, from the New Haven area. They were paid $4.50 for just turning up. At the beginning of the experiment they were introduced to another participant, who was actually a confederate of the experimenter (Milgram). They drew straws to determine their roles – learner or teacher – although this was fixed and the confederate was always the learner. There was also an “experimenter” dressed in a grey lab coat, played by an actor (not Milgram).
Two rooms in the Yale Interaction Laboratory were used - one for the learner (with an electric chair) and another for the teacher and experimenter with an electric shock generator. The “learner” (Mr. Wallace) was strapped to a chair with electrodes. After he has learned a list of word pairs given him to learn, the "teacher" tests him by naming a word and asking the learner to recall its partner/pair from a list of four possible choices.The teacher is told to administer an electric shock every time the learner makes a mistake, increasing the level of shock each time. There were 30 switches on the shock generator marked from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 (danger – severe shock). The learner gave mainly wrong answers on purpose and for each of these the teacher gave him an electric shock. When the teacher refused to administer a shock the experimenter was to give a series of prods to ensure they continued.
There were 4 prods and if one was not obeyed then the experimenter read out the next prod, and so on.
Aim
Milgram (1963) was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. Stanley Milgram was interested in how easily ordinary people could be influenced into committing atrocities for example, Germans in WWII.
Milgram's Experiment
Conclusion
Milgram concluded that ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being. Obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the way we are brought up. The Milgram experiment was carried out many times whereby Milgram varied the basic procedure. By doing this, Milgram could identify which factors affected obedience. First factor was power of uniform. The experimenter wore a grey lab coat as a symbol of his authority. The role of uniform was providing power that the work is more professional and make obedience toward the power. Second factor was power of location. The experiment was performed at Yale University rather than any normal office on the street. The power of Yale University as one of the IVY league might affect to the participants. The participants might trusted and obeyed the intelligence of Yale University. Also, the participants might have burden and sense of duty on the $ 4.50 which was paid as the work. Like this experiment, people are vulnerable to the particular social power.
Results
65% (two-thirds) of participants continued to the highest level of 450 volts which is fatal level of electic shock, although they already knew that it is fatal level of shock. All the participants continued to 300 volts.
Milgram did more than one experiment – he carried out 18 variations of his study. All he did was alter the situation to see how this affected obedience.
Failed Morality/ Variables of the Morality
nfortunately, everybody does not develop the sense of morality in the same order with various reasons. Some people may have innate problems; however, most reasons come from relationship, situations, and environment. To be specific, unformed social power, competition, anonymity, and media, and etc. affect as variables of the morality. One of the greatest variables of the morality is social power. The moral conviction and conscience of people is easily defeated when they received demand from their boss or someone who has higher social status than them