Milgram experiment

William Pitcairn. Mezzotint by J. Jones, 1777, after Sir J. Wellcome V0004686

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File:A-Virtual-Reprise-of-the-Stanley-Milgram-Obedience-Experiments-pone.0000039.s011.ogv Milgram experiment

The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. They measured the willingness of study participants, men from a diverse range of occupations with varying levels of education, to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Participants were led to believe that they were assisting an unrelated experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a "learner." These fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real.

Background

The experiments began in July 1961, three months after the start of the trial of German Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised his psychological study to answer the popular contemporary question: "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" The experiments were conducted under the guise of a study on the effects of punishment on learning.

Procedure

In the Milgram experiment, participants were told by an experimenter that they were part of a study to improve learning through punishment. They were assigned the role of "teacher" and were instructed to give electric shocks to a "learner" in the case of incorrect answers to certain questions. The "learner" was an actor and a confederate of the experimenter, and the "teacher" was unaware that the electric shocks were fake. The shocks increased in 15-volt increments for each wrong answer. If the "teacher" wanted to stop the experiment, they were given a series of verbal prods by the experimenter, ranging from mild reminders to continue to more direct orders.

Results

Milgram found that a high proportion of participants were willing to obey the experimenter's commands, even when they believed they were causing significant harm to the "learner." The original series of experiments found that 65% of participants administered the experiment's final massive 450-volt shock, and all participants administered shocks of at least 300 volts. Participants exhibited signs of tension and stress, including sweating, trembling, stuttering, laughing nervously, and, in some cases, having seizures.

Ethical concerns

The Milgram experiment raised questions about the ethics of scientific experimentation because of the extreme emotional stress suffered by participants. The experiment was criticized for its potential to harm the participants' self-esteem and for the lack of informed consent, as participants were misled about the nature of the experiment. This led to changes in how psychological experiments are conducted.

Legacy

The Milgram experiment has had a lasting impact on understanding social psychology, particularly in the areas of obedience, authority, and conformity. It has prompted a significant amount of research on why people obey authority, including further studies on the conditions under which obedience to authority is most likely to occur. The experiment's findings have been applied to a wide range of situations, including business ethics, military conduct, and understanding the behavior of individuals in large organizations.