Full Blog Obidience to Authority

Ch 1-8

The first chapter discusses obedience and its importance in the fabric of social life. Here he gives an introduction of his experiments on the topic. In the second chapter he goes further in to the details and description of the different parts of the experiments. He explained them from the ground up from how the test subjects were obtained to the mechanisms used in the experiments. He set the stage for the experiments. The third chapter deals with the expected behavior of the subjects in the shock experiment. The expected behavior of the subjects are hypothesized and discussed explaining why a subject would stop once the actor begged to stop. The next chapter, Chapter ,4 deal with the reaction of the subject in correlation to vicinity. The close a subject was to the actor, the more prone they were to stop. Chapter 5 deals with those subjects that confront authority and the factors that go into this such as background and interaction. Variations and control is the subject of chapter 6. It deals with the different changes to the experiment such as proximity, women in experiment, personalities. Different controls were modified to see the outcome and the effect of these. Chapter 7 is a lot like chapter 5 in discussing those subjects and their reactions to authority and why these actions are triggered. The last chapter, chapter 8, dealt with the importance of the hierarchy of authority that affected subjects.

Ch 9
Milgram discusses the differences between conformity, imitation, and obedience, hierarchical. Conformity is more implicit in its actions where obedience is more explicit. It then describes the experiments done with the teachers and shocking. This is shown in the museum exhibit where patrons follwed the instructions of only walking on the black tiles.

Ch 10
The root of obedience is sought in this chapter and also describes agentic state which is the condition a person is in when they see themselves as an agent carrying out another's wishes. This is seen in the shocking experiment where participants do as they are told while checking with the experimenter.

Ch 11
Milgram digs deeper to study the factors that impact a subject before experiments. Things such as their family structure, settings and environment, and reward system are analyzed. There is also an analysis when the subject is in the middle of an experiment to look at factors such as perception of authority figures, the appearance of authority, and the lack or excess of authority. It also discusses the famous prison experiment.

Ch 12
This chapter takes a look at disobedience. This is a way people release stress from strain by denying authority and becoming disobedient. Disobedience is a mechanism for avoiding or denying strain.

Ch 13
This chapter deals with aggression and different experiments conducted on the subject.


Ch 14
Discusses the findings of all his experiments indicating that all subjects met the typical expected findings and that they could be applied out of a laboratory setting.