It is not human nature to be cruel Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

It is not human nature to be cruel - Essay Example The initial theory of conformism, which suggests that a person, who has neither the expertise to make choices, especially in a crisis, will abandon decision making. The group is the persons behavioural model. This implies that cruelty is not part of human nature but can happen under some circumstances. The second is the agentic state theory, which suggests that whenever a person views himself as a tool for carrying out another person’s wishes, they shift responsibility of their actions off from themselves and obey their masters no matter what the orders are. This implies that some individuals shift the blame of their cruel trends to excuse their wrong doings. Milgram in his article gives a summary of the findings of his study as follows: The subject (teacher), a participant in the experiment was expected to choose between obeying an authority figure to inflict pain on a victim (learner) and the welfare of the victim in question. Before conducting the experiment, Milgram conducted an interview on 14 senior psychologists to determine what their predictions would concern the outcome of the experiment. Most of the respondents believed that only a small fraction (0 – 3 %) would be prepared to inflict the maximum pain (Schaefer 154). Apparently the findings suggested otherwise; in the first set of experiments 65% of the participants administered the maximum 450 volts. Even though the findings of this experiments were disputed by the likes of Professor James Waller, Chair of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College, Author Gina Perry and the general scientific community as concerns the credibility of his findings, ethical is sues and its applicability to the holocaust, the experiment was replicated on a different variety of subjects, under different circumstances and over a period of years but the findings did not differ much. Holstein in his experiment stated that children who were raised by more loving and caring