Human Behavior Experiment Paper PDF

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essay on famous human behavior experiments discussed in the book for professor swan...

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Jordyn Aievoli The Human Behavior Experiments After reading Chapter 6 on Conformity and Obedience and watching the film The Human Behavior Experiments, I learned a lot about the importance of authority figures and being around other people when being faced with a difficult situation. First, I think that Stanley Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority greatly demonstrated what pressures compel us to obey orders even when we know they are wrong. An authority figure or superior has a lot of power that often leaves subordinates to feel like have no other choice but to obey. I have personally struggled with dealing with authority figures in the past whether it is teachers, coaches, etc., I always want to do the right thing and I do not like to disappoint people. While I would like to believe that I am a good person and would never intentionally hurt someone else, I can understand that the pressures from an authority figure to continue to deliver shocks to the participant regardless of how it affects them could be very compelling. Relating to Milgram’s findings from his obedience study, I was very disturbed by what occurred with McDonald’s employees in the film. The fact that the assistant manager did not know the man over the phone but trusted and listened to everything he said was very surprising to me. I cannot imagine being in a situation like that. I would like to think that I would never trust someone to give me instructions like that over the phone, because it was so suspicious. But, as the lady mentioned in her interview, you truly do not know how you would act unless you are put in that situation. Furthermore, I think that Dr. John Darley’s research on the bystander effect was very interesting. I was curious to find out what it is about human nature that can keep us from helping someone when they are in need. He studied the murder of Kitty Genovese and found that, while

people heard her screams and could have responded or called the cops, they waited to see what other people were doing. He discovered that the responsibility an individual feels to help decreases when there are other people around to help. It is a sad fact but true. It has been seen in many other cases, like the death of Matthew Carrington as mentioned in the film. His fraternity brothers did not think about helping him until it was too late, because they were all there and just did what everyone else was doing. Lastly, the Stanford prison experiment by Philip Zimbardo was very eye-opening. He said that when we see someone do a bad thing we automatically assume they are a bad person to begin with, but his study showed that there is a set of social psychological variables that can make ordinary people do things they could never imagine doing. He examined how people would respond to a cruel environment without clear rules by setting up a fake prison and assigning people the role of guard or prisoner. Unfortunately, the experiment got out of control. It was scary to see how the people acting as guards treated the people acting as prisoners. I was shocked to see how a fake situation became so real. The prisoners even began to have mental breakdowns. His experiment was much different from Milgram’s because people were actually being hurt, both physically and emotionally. Milgram said that the big message from these experiments is that if we imagine ourselves in those studies, we would likely do what the majority did because we are all just ordinary people. It is actually the heroes who are rarer. A personal experience I had where I felt the power of a situation was last year in one of my classes. For part of our class, we divided into groups and visited an alternative high school to mentor some of the kids there. I am very passionate about helping people, especially kids who may need positive role models. However, my group members had other ideas in mind. We had specific lesson plans and talking points we were supposed to follow, so I was extremely

uncomfortable when my classmates went off track and discussed some inappropriate things, like college parties, with the high schoolers. I felt that it was wrong of them to show those kinds of values to kids who were already at risk and some who even had pending drug charges. I felt conflicted on what to do about it for a while. In the moment, I kind of pushed it off because I did not know how to act. Later, I decided that I needed to say something and went to my group members and told them how I was feeling. They were taken aback because they did not think that what they were doing was wrong. I am glad that I said something because they listened to me and decided to not discuss those topics anymore and our group time was much more productive....