Milgram Experiment and Lord of the Flies

Milgram’s Experiment and Lord of the Flies
Introduction
Milgram’s Experiment reveals that the majority of people are willing to obey the authority figure by following instructions to perform acts that conflict with their coincidence. Besides, the Lord of Flies is a real example of obeying authority. This is because the Lord of Flies shows that boys are willing to follow any chain of command. The connections show that there are less evil people than good. However, society acts as the foundation of a person’s wrongdoing or evil. Milgram’s Experiment assessed people’s reaction told to give a painful electric shock, while in the Lord of Flies by William Golding readers are introduced to actors of evil and good. The study shows that despite many individuals being useful in the world, only a few are great. The purpose of this study is to show how William Golding in the Lord of Flies connects with Milgram’s Experiment themes to demonstrate how people are willing to obey orders from an authority figure. The paper provides a clear analysis of the link between the Lord of Flies and Milgram’s Experiment and the implications it has on the modern day leadership style and how people are willing to obey a chain of command from an authority figure. Theoretical
Milgram’s Experiment was carried out to show how people obey authorities under all circumstances, especially people who instructed them to perform acts that conflict the coincidence of purposes. The purpose of Milgram’s Experiment was to give students electric shocks by separating them from the subject and establishing a tape recorder, which was integrated with electronic shocks. Therefore, if the answers were inaccurate, the teacher would administer a shock to the learner by an increasing voltage for each wrong answer, while for the correct answer, the teacher would go to the next word pair. Milgram’s Experiment was in a controlled setting such that the learner could not attempt to quit the experiment, which led to the establishment of status and authority (Batson and Daniel, 2016, 10). Milgram’s Experiment showed factors that affect obedience. For instance, the status of location showed that prestige of location increase obedience, while less personal responsibility increases obedience. Besides, individuals tend to obey others if they acknowledge their authority as legally based or/and morally right. Thus, the uniformity of the authority figure can provide people with status as well as peer support or presence of others disobeying the authority figure decreases the obedience level. Milgram’s Experiment showed that proximity to authority plays a significant role in obedience as people can easily resist orders from authority if they are not nearby (Haslam and Stephen, 2017, 63).
In Milgram’s Experiment, the teacher does not know that the shocks are not real, and the student behind the participation is in the experiment working with Milgram. Besides, the learner is getting words pairs incorrect on purpose, making the experiment fake despite showing the importance of obeying authority. Therefore, the actual experiment is on the teacher. Despite the increased yelling by participants, they continue to finish the experiment. As much as many participants wished to stop, Milgram used four phrases to entice them to finish the exercise. The motivating phrases were, “please continue, the experiment requires you to continue, it is necessary for you to continue and you have no other choice, you must go on (Haslam, Nick, Loughnan, and Perry, 2014).”
The Lord of Flies by William Golding introduced characters of evil and good. The study shows that despite many individuals being useful in the world, only a few are great. This is because people control how their environment influences their actions and behaviors. During the feast, Jack sat like a leader and idol as he issued commands such as who was going to join his tribe. Through his command and leadership authority, most of the boys accepted because they wanted meat and protection from Jack. Besides, despite Jack punishing Wilfred for no particular or apparent reason, Roger and the rest of the boys of the tribe felt nothing wrong about it. This is because none of the boys had the courage or confidence to stand up for Wilfred. Therefore, the Lord of Flies by William Golding showed that people have a fear of authority and quickly give up justice. Moreover, Jack and Roger tortured Eric and Sam, forcing them to submit to Jack’s command and join his tribe. This shows that authority forces the weak people to follow them using violent action and false use of authority. The failure of Jack to admit that he took too much power and authority shows that influential leaders are not willing and lack the courage to admit mistakes such as enslaving others. The analysis of the Lord of Flies shows that civilized officers are part of an adult world in which violence and war are associated with social order and civilization. People are expected to obey authority as influential leaders do things to destroy the peaceful world, similar to what Jack did to the boys and vice versa.
Connections
The comparison of Milgram’s Experiment and the novel of the Lord of Flies show that the boys feared the beast referred as the electronic shocks, while they allowed Jack to gain power and authority through obedience to his command. The review shows that it is easier to control people and persuade them to be savagery by obeying the experiments. This is because the boys followed the authority or command to get protection or avoid the electric shock. The connection between Milgram’s Experiment and the novel of the Lord of Flies is evident in that both boys follow the order to obtain protection or avoid electronic shocks. For instance, the boys are stranded and end up following the commands from Jack without comprehending the reasons for doing it. Besides, from both sets of experiments, it is evident that people follow orders without questioning the consequences or impacts on the other party.
William Golding in the Lord of Flies presents the obedience idea in Milgram’s Experiment through the connections of actors take as a leader, Jack, and Ralph, and the other actors who ideally obey the leader’s command or orders without questioning. This connection shows how people or kids are ready and willing to obey the authority figure that has leadership skills………………………………
References
Batson, Charles Daniel. What’s wrong with morality?: A social-psychological perspective. Oxford University Press, 2016: 2-25
Bègue, Laurent, et al. “Personality Predicts Obedience in a Milgram Paradigm.” Journal of Personality 83.3 (2015): 299-306.
Branson, Jane, and Peter Buckroyd. Lord of the Flies, William Golding: Workbook. Oxford University Press, 2017: 10-30
Gridley, Mark, and William J. Jenkins. Obedience to Authority. Macat Library, 2017: 20-27
Haslam, Nick, Steve Loughnan, and Gina Perry. “Meta-Milgram: An empirical synthesis of the obedience experiments.” PloS one 9.4 (2014): e93927.
Haslam, S. Alexander, and Stephen D. Reicher. “50 Years of “Obedience to Authority”: From Blind Conformity to Engaged Followership.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 13 (2017): 59-78.
Hollander, Matthew M. “The repertoire of resistance: Non‐compliance with directives in Milgram’s ‘obedience’experiments.” British Journal of Social Psychology54.3 (2015): 425-444.