Stanley Milgram

Stanley Milgram (August 15th 1933 with New York - December 20th 1984 in New York) is a social psychologist American. He is mainly known for the Expérience of Milgram (on the tender with the authority) and the Expérience of the small world. He is regarded as one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century.

Biography

He obtains his diploma of Political science to the Queens College of New York in 1954. He was registered with the Université Harvard to write a thesis in social Psychologie, request which was initially refused to him because of a lack of studies in psychology. He was accepted in 1954 after having followed six courses of psychology, and obtained finally his thesis in 1960. Its mentor in Harvard was the psychologist Solomon Asch.

Thereafter, he works especially with the Université Yale, where he will make his major discoveries.

It is of 1960 to 1963 that Milgram carries out a series of experiments, with several alternatives, aiming at estimating at which point an individual can yield with the orders of an authority which it accepts, but which enters in contradiction with its Conscience. In 1962, the American Psychological Association suspends its adhesion because of questions concerning the ethics of its experiments. The surprising and rather worrying results, but also the method, caused many movements within the community of the psychologists and the Public opinion.

In 1967, Milgram takes up an idea developed in 1929 by Frigyes Karinthy: the theory of the Six degrees of separation. Milgram tries to show that any human being can rather easily be connected to another by a chain of social relations: it is about the Expérience of the small world.

In 1974, Milgram publishes Obedience to Authority .

It is deceased in New York of one heart attack at the 51 years age.

Contribution and work

Its principal contribution is the study of the tender to the authority and the chain of the social relations.

Tender with the authority

See also: Experiment of Milgram

Its famous experiment, the experiment of Milgram, becomes largely known as from 1963.

One more readily speaks in the Francophonie about “tender to the authority”, probably because it is an attitude which goes largely beyond authorized obedience, and about the simple concept of obedience as authorized at the beginning of experiment and which there is a Net crushing of the field of the values: one finds the problems largely evoked with the lawsuit of Adolf Eichmann, which articulated its defense on the topic “I obeyed the orders” (see the analysis of Hannah Arendt and the Banalité of the evil). Let us remind the passage that the Geneva Convention requires each one the refusal of execution of the orders which would violate it. Certain officers go beyond this attitude and declare that they would refuse to carry out, convention of Geneva or not, an order which would be disapproved by their conscience.

Experiment of the small world

See also: Study of the small world

For this experiment, a Stockbroker of Boston is selected like “individual-target”, and three starting groups of a hundred people each one by chance made up, one are composed inhabitants of Boston selected randomly, the second of inhabitants of the Nebraska selected randomly, and the third of inhabitants of the Nebraska also, but who have the effect of being shareholders. Each individual of these starting groups receives a file describing the experiment and the individual-target (its place of residence and its profession in particular), and has the role of forwarding this file by the post office, either directly with the individual-target if he knows it personally, or with a person whom he knows personally and who has a greater probability of knowing the individual-target personally.

On the 296 individuals of the starting groups, 217 agreed to take part in the experiment and dispatched the file with one their knowledge, and finally, 64 files arrived to the individual-target, at the end of chains of knowledge variable lengths, but of which the average length was of 5,2 intermediaries.

Works

Books

  • Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: Experimental year View , To grip Hakes, 2004.

  • Stanley Milgram, the Tender with the authority , 1974. ISBN 2702104576
  • Stanley Milgram, The Individual in has Social World: Essays and Experiments , 2nd ED., McGraw-Hill, 1992.

Articles

  • Stanley Milgram, Nationality and Conformity; with has biographical Sketch . Scientific American, 1961,205:34; 45-51, December 1961.

  • Stanley Milgram, Behavioral study off obedience , Newspaper off Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1963, vol. 67, pp. 371-378.
  • Stanley Milgram, Hollander, P., Murder the Heard . Nation, 1964,198:602 - January 4th, 15th and th 1964.
  • Stanley Milgram, A. Milgram, Facts off Life . Nation, 1954,199:412 +, No 30,1964.
  • Stanley Milgram, J. Through, Experimental Year Study off the Small World Problem , Sociometry, 1969, vol. 32, No 4. (1), pp. 425-443
  • Stanley Milgram, Experiment in Living room in Cities . Science, 1969,167:1461 - 8, Mr. 13, `70.
  • Stanley Milgram, If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute have Stranger, Would You? Esquire, 1970,73:72 - 73, February 1970.
  • Stanley Milgram, J. Reinert, Would You Obey have Hitler? , Science Digest, 1970,67:34 - 39, May 1970.
  • Stanley Milgram, Dangers off Obedience , To grip, 1973,247:62 +, December 6th, 1973.
  • Stanley Milgram, Man off 1,000 Ideas , Psychology Today, 1974,8:74 - June 5th, th and th 1974.
  • Stanley Milgram, Frozen World off the Familiar Stranger , Psychology Today, 1974,8:70 - 73, June 1974.
  • Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority , To grip and Row, 1974.
  • Stanley Milgram, Image-Freezing Machine , Psychology Today, 1977,14:7 - November 12th, th and th 1976.
  • Stanley Milgram, City Families , Psychology Today, 1977,10:59 - 63+, January 1977.
  • Stanley Milgram, Candid Camera , Society, 1979,16:72 - September 5th, th and th 1979.
  • Stanley Milgram, Understanding Psychological Man , Psychology Today, 1982,169:49 - 51, May 1982.
  • Stanley Milgram, Network Coils , Omni, 1984,7:34 +, October 1984.

Anecdotes

A passage of the film I… as Icare puts in scene the Expérience of Milgram.

In its album of 1986 So , Peter Gabriel wrote a song, We Do What We' Re Told (Milgram' S 37) , referring to the experiment of Milgram, which in one of its alternatives saw 37 participants out of 40 inflicting the maximum discharge.

See too

Related articles

External bonds

; On work of Milgram, in general

  • On work of Stanley Milgram, Dr. Thomas Blass

; On the tender with the authority and the wars

  • Jean-Jacques Frésard, Of the laboratories of Milgram to the battle fields: some elements of comprehension of the behavior of the combatants , 2004, RICR March, flight 86, n°853, 147-168

  • Daniel Munoz-Rojas and Jean-Jacques Frésard, Origins of the behavior in the war: to include/understand and prevent the violations of the DIH , 2004, RICR March, flight 86, n°853, p 169-187

; On the theory of the small world

  • Nicolas Bermond, social Networking

  • the University of Columbia confirms the theory of the " six degrés"

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