The resistance experiments

Morality, authority and obedience in Stanley Milgram's account

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8975726
AutoresDavid Kaposi (0000-0001-9910-0172, School of Psychology The Open University Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, autor correspondente)
Ano2017
Volume47
Fascículo4
Páginas382-401
Data de publicação2017-04-06
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0021-8308 • E-ISSN: 1468-5914
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/jtsb.12137
OpenAlexW2604605759
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas11
Referências citadas41

The paper seeks to re‐conceptualize Stanley Milgram's (in)famous experiments on willing obedience by drawing solely on Milgram's own contemporary account. It identifies a substantial incongruence between the findings Milgram presented (i.e., his description of the experiments) and the meaning he imputed to them (i.e., his interpretation of the experiments). It argues that instead of operationalizing the concepts he claimed to operationalize – legitimate authority, embodied morality and willing obedience –, Milgram's description suggests that the operative forces in the experiments were an illegitimate authority and acts which in effect collude with that authority. As a result, the paper concludes that what the experimental findings represented was not so much obedience out of choice, but out of coercion. Thus, the paper seeks to redirect the conceptual‐moral focus of the findings from the participants who “shockingly” obeyed to those who managed to resist the coercive force of the total experimental situation

Coercion (linguistics · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Meaning (existential · Milgram experiment · Morality · Obedience · Operationalization · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Social Influence · Social Psychology · Stalking, Cyberstalking, and Harassment