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Unit 1 Milgram’s Experiments and the Power of Authority
Listening Comprehension
After world war Ⅱ, most Nazi leaders were caught and tried for crimes against
humanity, but an important question remained unanswered. The leaders of Nazi Germany had
not acted alone in their crimes. Thousands of German soldiers had worked at the concentration
camps where millions of innocent people had been killed How could one explain the readiness
of such large numbers of people to hurt and kill other people?
In order to answer this question, a psychologist at Yale University named Stanley
Mi|gram started an experiment in 1963. People were asked to participate in an experiment
testing how memory worked (although this was not the true purpose of the experiment). The
subjects were told to ask questions of a person in another room. If the person gave an
incorrect answer, the subjects were asked to push a button that would give the person an
electric shock. At first, the electric shock was very weak, but it grew stronger with each wrong
answer. (Actually, there was no real electric shock, and the person in the other room was an
actor. But this was unknown to the subjects.) Although the subjects could not see the actor
they could hear him scream in pain each time they pushed the button to shock him. Again, this
person was an actor and was not really in pain. As the power of the shocks increased and as
these cries grew louder, many of the subjects started to get nervous and asked Milgram if they
could stop the experiment. He assured them that it was OK, and that they must continue with
the experiment. Amazingly, about 65% of the test subjects continued to give the electric
shocks, even when the power of the electric shocks was near lethal levels.
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Listening Comprehension
After world war Ⅱ, most Nazi leaders were caught and tried for crimes against
humanity, but an important question remained unanswered. The leaders of Nazi Germany had
not acted alone in their crimes. Thousands of German soldiers had worked at the concentration
camps where millions of innocent people had been killed How could one explain the readiness
of such large numbers of people to hurt and kill other people?
In order to answer this question, a psychologist at Yale University named Stanley
Mi|gram started an experiment in 1963. People were asked to participate in an experiment
testing how memory worked (although this was not the true purpose of the experiment). The
subjects were told to ask questions of a person in another room. If the person gave an
incorrect answer, the subjects were asked to push a button that would give the person an
electric shock. At first, the electric shock was very weak, but it grew stronger with each wrong
answer. (Actually, there was no real electric shock, and the person in the other room was an
actor. But this was unknown to the subjects.) Although the subjects could not see the actor
they could hear him scream in pain each time they pushed the button to shock him. Again, this
person was an actor and was not really in pain. As the power of the shocks increased and as
these cries grew louder, many of the subjects started to get nervous and asked Milgram if they
could stop the experiment. He assured them that it was OK, and that they must continue with
the experiment. Amazingly, about 65% of the test subjects continued to give the electric
shocks, even when the power of the electric shocks was near lethal levels.
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