5.+Stanley+Milgram

Stanley Milgram

Aim: Stanley Milgram was a social psychologist that made leaps and bounds within social psychology. His ultimate goal was to simply understand the ways that human interact and experience the world. He made experiments such as the now famous Milgram experiment, and the six degrees of separation theory. By the end of his life, he made social psychology a big subtopic within psychology. Stanley Milgram is widely regarded as one of the most important people within social psychology. His Milgram experiment answered a question that nobody wanted to answer: Were the Nazi soldiers just following orders during the Holocaust? (Simply Psychology). The answer he found stunned his peers, around 60% of the subjects followed all of his orders which involved killing the subject. Milgram's aim was achieved within his lifetime as he preformed one of most famous psychology experiments in recent history.

Audience: Milgram's audience is twofold. The first part of his audience are simply academics and students of psychology and the second being the general public. His goal was to simply learn more about how people interact. Through publishing his findings, he pushed social psychology to the forefront. He had answered the question that plagued researchers and had effectively communicated it. To further his point in the experiment, he even tested for different variables (Simply Psychology). Milgram tested around the world, and tried different things like distance to each other, location etc. Both audiences read the findings and were most likely stunned at what he found out through his experiments.

Cultural: Culturally, Milgram helped push a subset of science further forward. The experiment that he conducted as well as his theory on six degrees of separation helped to make researchers and laymen more interested in social psychology. The Milgram experiment allowed people to ask themselves if it came to them they would actually follow orders in a situation like that (Simply Psychology). The answer most likely would be yes. The six degrees of separation theory crafted by Milgram was eventually used in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Psychology Today). They crafted the game Six Degrees of Bacon from this theory. Interesting enough, Microsoft conducted a study on its user's contacts and found that the average chain of contacts between people were 6.6 people. Milgram had plenty of effect on the culture of America.

Historical: Stanley Milgram was born on August 15, 1933 in New York City (Cherry 1). He first attended Queen’s College as an undergraduate student. Then applied to Harvard’s PhD program for social psychology. He was initially rejected from the program however, he later got in. Once getting through the program, he became the Harvard professor for social psychology. This is when he performed the Milgram Experiment. And when he devised the notion that there is only 6 degrees of separation between everyone. Milgram died at age 51 of a heart attack on December 20, 1984.

Sources:

"Milgram Experiment | Simply Psychology." //Simply Psychology//. 1 Jan. 2007. Web. 1 Apr. 2015. <[]>.

"Six Degrees: Urban Myth?" //Psychology Today//. 1 Mar. 2002. Web. 1 Apr. 2015. <[]>.

Cherry, Kendra. "Stanley Milgram Biography." //Psychology About//. Web. 1 Apr. 2015. <[]>. "Find the Right Therapist." //Stanley Milgram Biography//. Web. 1 Apr. 2015. .