Over two decades ago Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo administered experiments that tested the psychological impact of higher authority on people's choices. People sought to obey their roles more strictly when they were threatened as opposed to when they had a choice to obey them. In these experiments it can be seen that people will go against their true morals in order to impress or please their authority. The two experiments prove that once there is an established higher lever of authority, it is easy for people to justify their responsibilities as human being.

The Milgram and Zimbardo experiments both portray the underlying affects of authority on what should be people's natural decisions. In the Milgram experiment the study analyzed people's reactions when being ordered to shock complete strangers. Zimbardo's experiment evaluated the possible transformations that people undertake when placed in a prison environment. Though these two studies both portray adjustment in people’s behavior under stressful circumstances, the effect of the experiments and psychological outlook of those involved differ as a result of the varying roles exercised.

The Justification of Responsibility 8

ups while one of them was sitting on another’s back. They convinced themselves that their actions were justifiable as they were only doing what everyone else, meaning the other guards, were doing in order to keep their inmates in line. Although the guards were not necessarily evil people, once they were put in the prison environment and given full authority, they misused their power, believing that their actions were correct due to the authority they were given. “It is easy to ignore responsibility when one is only an intermediate link in a chain of actions” (Milgram, 1974, p. 7) and for the guards this allowed them the freedom to blame their harsh actions on science and the warden’s orders.

experiment is then altered to allow the teachers to administer their own level of voltage. In most cases, the teacher dispensed painless levels of shock to the learners.

In the Zimbardo experiment prisoners are able to abandon their responsibilities by using the classic excuse of “everyone else is doing it”. Their main role is to be “good” prisoners. This does not mean simply following the orders of the guards, but also following the rules of science. Remember, once the prisoners enter the prison they are informed that their time there is temporary and that they are merely taking part in a scientific experiment. However, this certainty is not enough when the guards begin to mistreat them. The second morning of the experiment the prisoners locked themselves in their cells by placing their beds in front of the cell doors and began to curse at the guards. Instead of adapting hostile behavior toward the guards’ unfairness, the prisoners had the option of tolerating the cruelty. Yet, it was easy for all the prisoners to collaborate in their cursing at the guards due to the fact that “everyone else was doing the same thing”. In many aspects the prisoners are not in the wrong, as they are only standing up for their rights. But what they seem to forget is that a prisoner’s rights are dependent upon the guards in the facility and that they, for the time being, are not living normal lives and do not possess basic freedoms.

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