The milgram obedience experiment

Stanley Milgram's experiments on obedience to authority, conducted in the 1960s, are some of the most powerful and controversial studies in the history of social psychology.

They investigated the extent to which people would be willing to obey the orders of an authority figure, even when those orders involved inflicting harm on another person.

Experimental Design and Procedure

Milgram recruited male participants through newspaper advertisements for a purported study on memory and learning at Yale University.

Each participant was assigned the role of "teacher" through a seemingly random drawing (which was actually rigged), while a confederate of the experimenter played the role of "learner."

The "teacher's" task was to administer electric shocks of increasing intensity to the "learner" whenever the latter made an error on a task memory.

The shocks were fictitious, but the "teacher" believed them to be real, as he heard the "learner"'s (pre-recorded) complaints, screams, and pleas as the voltage was increased.

A white-coated experimenter, representing scientific authority, urged the "teacher" to continue the procedure despite the "learner's" protests.

Surprising and Disturbing Results

Contrary to the predictions of experts (psychiatrists and other professionals), who estimated that only a very small percentage of people would actually administer the maximum shocks, Milgram found that a significant majority of participants (about 65% in the standard condition) obeyed the experimenter's orders to the end, administering the maximum shock of 450 volts, labeled "Danger: Severe Shock."

Many participants showed obvious signs of stress and conflict internal (sweating, trembling, nervous laughter), yet they continued to obey.

These results revealed the powerful influence that authority figures can exert on individual behavior, leading ordinary people to perform acts that, under other circumstances, they would