The Individual In A Social World: Essays and Experiments

by Stanley Milgram, John Sabini, Maury Silver

Stanley Milgram is the most oft-cited social psychologist in textbooks. This collection of major experiments and essays is the first and only one that includes his famous obedience study (unabridged) and his posthumous essay on the "Cyrano effect." Edited by two of his famous students (Sabini and Silver), this brief, inexpensive paperback is an ideal primary source supplement for social psychology survey courses and advanced courses for critical thinking about methods of experimentation in social psychology.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Sociology, Philosophy, Social Science

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Dr. Stanley Milgram (Ph.D., Harvard University, Social Psychology, 1960) spent most of his career as a professor of psychology at City University of New York Graduate Center. While at Harvard, he conducted the small-world experiment (the source of the "six degrees of separation" concept); at Yale, he conducted the "Milgram experiment" on obedience to authority. He also introduced the concept of "familiar strangers."

He took a psychology course as an undergraduate at Queens College, New York, where he earned his Bachelor's degree in political science in 1954. He applied to a Ph.D. program in social psychology at Harvard University and was initially rejected due to lack of psychology background; he was accepted in 1954 after taking six courses in psychology. Most likely because of his controversial Milgram Experiment, Milgram was denied tenure at Harvard after becoming an assistant professor there, but instead accepted an offer to become a tenured full professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (Blass, 2004).

Milgram influenced later psychologists such as Alan C. Elms, who was his first graduate assistant on the obedience experiment.

Reviews

[Enrico Mascarpone · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an interesting but rather dated series of essays, interviews and summary articles of Milgram's work. I was interested, like most people, I would have thought, in his famous experiments on obedience in hierarchical social situations, the Yale/Bridport electric shock experiments, the results of which, I think still have relevance for us today. In fact Milgram foresaw this wondering "what government, with its vastly greater authority and prestige, can command of its subjects".

For the general reader I don't think this book gives you much more than reading up about the experiments on WIKIPEDIA or suchlike. Milgram does, however, come across as an inventive, lucid and reflective social scientist and author. He worked in era unburdened by, often, timid ethical oversight (and I'm not saying that ethical approval is not needed, to be clear) and able to do interesting experiments with broad social significance and interest that endures.

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything old is new again; the essays in this collection are particularly timely for today. We may laugh and how startling Milgram found photography or cyranoids and the technology that supports them, but the writing serves as a clear, non-negotiable benchmark to reflect on how much society has "advanced" since his observations. Moreover, the work on group think, social pressures, influence of television, and more could not be more relevant than they are to day as we struggle with social division.

[Muhammad Akhyar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buku ini secara ajaib menjadi rujukan mata kuliah "baru" di Psikologi UI: Psikologi Perkotaan (Urban). Lebih jauh, justru saya merasa agak terharu ketika membaca kata pengantar Philip Zimbardo di buku ini. Sial, bagaimana mungkin dua raksasa psikologi sosial ini ternyata adalah teman kuliah. Membayangkan bagaimana mereka dahulu menyelesaikan bachelornya dan pelan-pelan menabalkan diri sebagai orang-orang yang akan diingat, tentu akan menjadi sangat menyenangkan jika itu difilmkan.