Zimbardo's Perils Of Obedience

A few good men Comparative Analysis Obedience to authority is something that is drilled into almost every child in almost every culture. We've been taught to always obey your elders, and always listen to the directions given. All throughout school you’ve been made to not question the system or what the teachers tell you. This contributes to later on in the life of military personnel, who are made into soldiers with blinding loyalty. But is it really loyalty, or is it obedience to authority in another form. As to why they do this many psychologists and other people have experimented to determine the cause. One of which is Stanley Milgram a Social Psychologist who is the Author of “Perils of Obedience ” an article about an experiment he conducted …show more content…
A basement was turned into a mock prison, and hired students to be the guards and prisoners. The prisoners were grabbed at their homes by the guards and brought in and treated like real criminals to keep the experiment as real as possible. The guards worked in groups of threes for eight hour shifts and then switched. Zimbardo monitored everything and acted as the prison's warden, both the prisoners and guards adapted quickly to their new found roles. Within hours some guards started acting in a brutal and sadistic manner, and soon after more joined in. “they broke into each cell, stripped the prisoners naked, took the beds out, forced some of the prisoners who were then the ringleaders into solitary confinement, and generally began to harass and intimidate the prisoners.”(Zimbardo #) After not long the prisoners began to conform to their roles as well, and began to mimic actual prison behavior. They talked about prison issues a great deal of the time. They told tales on each other to the guards. They started taking the prison rules very seriously, as though they were there for the prisoners’ benefit and infringement would spell disaster for all of them. Some even began siding with the guards against prisoners who did not obey the rules. The prisoners became more submissive and the guards became more aggressive and assertive the longer the …show more content…
In each experiment and the movie that very thing happened. In Milgram's experiment the “teachers” listened to the instructor, even when the “learner” was screaming out in agony. So when a soldier is given an order from one of his superiors he is likely to carry it out even if the act is immoral. The soldier doesn't want to disobey the superior, and the fact that the order is coming from a higher up somewhat distorts the morals of the soldier. It no longer is seen as wrong by the soldier, all he or she thinks is that a higher up order it so it must be okay. The soldier also doesn't want to disappoint his supervisor by not fitting the role given to them. In A Few Good Men Lance Cpl.Dawson and Pfc.Downey kill their fellow marine because one of their higher ups told them to. Neither of the two had any problem with it, they just saw it as an order from a supervisor, so they did it fitting the role of an obedient subordinate. Just like in Zimbardo's experiment, where both the prisoners and guards completely conformed to the role given. Both Zimbardo and Milgram would agree that in most circumstances an order given by a person of higher authority will be carried out by the