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Unit 1 Milgram’s Experiments and the Power of Authority
Reading 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. [A] 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.) [B] Although the subjects could not see the actor they could hear
him scream the pain each time they pushed the button to shock him. [C] 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. [D] 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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Reading 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. [A] 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.) [B] Although the subjects could not see the actor they could hear
him scream the pain each time they pushed the button to shock him. [C] 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. [D] 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.
5
