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Even when some people decided enough was enough, the authority figure would tell the 'teacher' that the full responsibility was that of the experimenter, the 'teacher' would not be responsible and thus the shocks continued.
There is some basis to believe that people simply want to please others whom they believe to be superior to them. There is also the need to conform to certain group rules in order to feel that we are accepted. However, Zimbardo also claims that people don't need a group to influence us; he believes that there is a lot of influence that comes from a single source -- another person, which was the case in the Milgram experiment. There was not a group urging these 'teachers' on; there was one man in a laboratory coat whom the 'teachers' believed to be of some kind of powerful and intelligent person.
The shocking results from the Milgram experiment found that "two out of every three (65%) of the volunteers went all the way up to the maximum shock level of 450 volts. The vast majority of people, the 'teachers,' shocked their 'learner-victim' over and over again despite his increasingly desperate pleas to stop" (Zimbardo 271). We have to ask ourselves how we would act under these circumstances, but simply asking ourselves doesn't change the fact that these people in the experiment were ordinary people, just like everyone else. With such a high percentage (65%) of people going all the way to the maximum shock level, it is hard to believe that all of these people had a little bit of evil in them. In fact, it would be ridiculous to think so.
The cases of the Virginia Tech gunman and the Milgram experiment are quite different in scope and nature. First of all,...
Many of the victims who survived the shooting said that there was a very serious but calm look on the gunman's face (Hauser & O'Connor 2007), leading them to believe he knew exactly what he was doing. He was there on a mission to kill and then kill himself. The 'teachers' in the Milgram experiment did not want to kill anyone most likely, yet they were somehow convinced that hurting people was okay when they were being told that it was okay by someone they believed to possess superior morals.
Works Cited
Experiment Resources. "Milgram Experiment Ethics." Experiment Resources. Web.
2010. Accessed on November 12, 2010: http://www.experiment-
resources.com/milgram-experiment-ethics.html
Experiment Resources. "Stanley Miglram Experiment (1961)." Experiment Resources.
Web. 2010. Accessed on November 12, 2010: http://www.experiment-
resources.com/stanley-milgram-experiment.html
Hauser, Christine. & O'Connor, Anahad. "Virginia Tech Shooting Leaves 33 Dead." the
New York Times. 2007. Web. Accessed on November 12, 2010:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/us/16cnd-shooting.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1
Shapira, Ian. & Jackman, Tom. "Gunman Kills 32 at Virginia Tech in Deadliest Shooting
in U.S. History." Washington Post. 2007. Web. Accessed on November 12, 2010:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041600533.html
Zimbardo, Philip. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. NY:
Random House; 1st edition, 2007.
Works Cited
Experiment Resources. "Milgram Experiment Ethics." Experiment Resources. Web.
2010. Accessed on November 12, 2010: http://www.experiment-
resources.com/milgram-experiment-ethics.html
Experiment Resources. "Stanley Miglram Experiment (1961)." Experiment Resources.
Web. 2010. Accessed on November 12, 2010: http://www.experiment-
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/us/16cnd-shooting.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
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