experiments on obedience

Behavioral Study of Obedience: Insights from Milgram’s Groundbreaking Experiments

A haunting question emerges from the annals of psychological research: how far will ordinary people go in obeying orders, even when those orders conflict with their moral conscience? This unsettling inquiry has captivated psychologists, sociologists, and ethicists for decades, sparking intense debates about the nature of human behavior and the power of authority.

The study of obedience in psychology delves deep into the human psyche, exploring the complex interplay between individual morality and societal pressures. At its core, obedience refers to the act of complying with commands or instructions from an authority figure, even when those directives may conflict with personal beliefs or ethical standards. It’s a phenomenon that permeates every aspect of our lives, from childhood interactions with parents and teachers to adult relationships with bosses, government officials, and other authority figures.

Understanding obedience is crucial for unraveling the mysteries of human behavior. It helps us comprehend why seemingly good people can sometimes participate in harmful or unethical acts when instructed to do so by those in positions of power. This knowledge has far-reaching implications for fields as diverse as organizational psychology, military training, and even the study of historical atrocities.

The history of obedience research is rich and complex, with roots stretching back to the aftermath of World War II. As the world grappled with the horrors of the Holocaust, psychologists and social scientists sought to understand how ordinary citizens could have participated in such widespread acts of cruelty and genocide. This quest for answers led to a series of groundbreaking experiments that would forever change our understanding of human behavior.

Milgram’s Obedience Experiment: A Landmark Study

In the early 1960s, a young psychologist named Stanley Milgram embarked on a research project that would become one of the most famous and controversial studies in the history of psychology. Motivated by a desire to understand the mechanisms behind the atrocities committed during the Holocaust, Milgram designed an experiment to test the limits of obedience to authority.

The experimental design was deceptively simple, yet profoundly revealing. Participants were told they were taking part in a study on learning and memory. They were instructed to administer electric shocks to a “learner” (actually an actor) whenever the learner gave an incorrect answer to a series of questions. The voltage of the shocks increased with each wrong answer, eventually reaching levels that would be fatal if real.

What the participants didn’t know was that the true purpose of the experiment was to see how far they would go in following orders to harm another person. The results were shocking, to say the least. A staggering 65% of participants continued to administer shocks up to the maximum voltage, despite hearing the learner’s (fake) cries of pain and pleas to stop.

These findings sent shockwaves through the scientific community and beyond. They suggested that ordinary people could be compelled to commit acts of cruelty simply by following orders from an authority figure. The implications were profound and deeply unsettling.

However, Milgram’s study was not without its critics. Behavioral research design principles were called into question, with many arguing that the experiment was unethical and potentially harmful to participants. The psychological distress experienced by some subjects raised serious concerns about the balance between scientific inquiry and ethical considerations.

Despite these controversies, Milgram’s work remains a cornerstone of obedience research, sparking countless debates and inspiring numerous follow-up studies. Its impact on our understanding of human behavior cannot be overstated.

Factors Influencing Obedience

Milgram’s experiments and subsequent research have identified several key factors that influence obedience. One of the most significant is the presence of authority figures. We’re hardwired to respect and follow those in positions of power, whether they’re wearing a lab coat, a police uniform, or a business suit. This tendency can sometimes override our own moral judgments, leading us to comply with orders we might otherwise question.

Social pressure and conformity also play crucial roles in obedience. Conformity occurs when people change their behavior to fit in with the group, even if it means going against their personal beliefs. In Milgram’s experiments, the presence of other participants (actually confederates of the experimenter) who obeyed without question increased the likelihood that the real subject would also comply.

The proximity of the authority figure and the victim also influences obedience levels. Milgram found that when participants were physically closer to the learner or further from the experimenter, they were less likely to obey harmful commands. This suggests that distance can create a psychological buffer that makes it easier to follow orders that conflict with our moral standards.

Personal responsibility and its diffusion also play significant roles in obedience situations. When individuals feel that the responsibility for their actions is shared with others or rests primarily with the authority figure giving the orders, they’re more likely to comply with unethical demands. This diffusion of responsibility can lead to a dangerous abdication of moral agency.

Replications and Variations of Milgram’s Study

Since Milgram’s groundbreaking work, numerous researchers have attempted to replicate and expand upon his findings. Cross-cultural studies have shown that while there are some variations in obedience levels across different societies, the basic tendency to obey authority is a universal human trait.

Gender differences in obedience behavior have also been explored, with mixed results. Some studies suggest that women may be slightly more likely to disobey unethical orders than men, but these differences are generally small and context-dependent.

Modern adaptations of obedience experiments have sought to address ethical concerns while still probing the limits of human compliance. For example, some researchers have used role-playing scenarios or simulated environments to study obedience without putting participants in potentially distressing situations.

The advent of virtual reality technology has opened up new avenues for obedience research. Human behavior experiments in virtual environments allow researchers to create realistic scenarios that test obedience without the ethical concerns associated with traditional methods. These studies have largely confirmed Milgram’s findings, showing that even in simulated environments, people tend to obey authority figures to a surprising degree.

Implications of Obedience Studies

The insights gained from obedience research have far-reaching implications for various aspects of society. Understanding destructive obedience can help us develop strategies to prevent individuals from blindly following harmful orders. This knowledge is particularly relevant in contexts where authority figures might abuse their power, such as in totalitarian regimes or corrupt organizations.

In the realm of organizational psychology, obedience studies have informed management practices and leadership training. By recognizing the power of authority and the potential for its misuse, companies can create more ethical work environments and foster a culture of responsible decision-making.

The findings from obedience research also have significant implications for military and law enforcement training. These institutions must strike a delicate balance between instilling discipline and obedience while also encouraging ethical behavior and moral courage. Training programs now often include scenarios that challenge trainees to question unethical orders and make independent moral judgments.

Perhaps most poignantly, obedience studies help us understand historical atrocities like the Holocaust. While they don’t excuse the actions of those who participated in such events, they provide insight into the psychological mechanisms that can lead ordinary people to commit extraordinary acts of cruelty when ordered to do so by authority figures.

Critiques and Limitations of Obedience Research

Despite its profound impact, obedience research is not without its critics. One of the main concerns is ecological validity – the extent to which laboratory findings can be generalized to real-world situations. Critics argue that the artificial nature of experiments like Milgram’s may not accurately reflect how people would behave in genuine high-stakes situations.

Ethical constraints in modern obedience studies have limited researchers’ ability to fully replicate or extend Milgram’s work. While this is undoubtedly necessary to protect participants, it also means that our understanding of obedience in extreme situations remains somewhat limited.

Some researchers have proposed alternative explanations for obedience behavior observed in these experiments. For instance, some argue that participants may have been motivated more by a desire to please the experimenter or avoid confrontation than by blind obedience to authority.

The generalizability of findings to real-world situations is another area of debate. While obedience studies provide valuable insights, the complexity of real-life scenarios involving authority and moral decision-making may not be fully captured in experimental settings.

Behavioral theories limitations also come into play when considering obedience research. These theories often struggle to account for individual differences in personality, cultural background, and personal experiences that may influence obedience behavior.

The Ongoing Relevance of Obedience Research

Despite these limitations, the study of obedience remains highly relevant in contemporary society. In an era of increasing polarization and the rise of authoritarian tendencies in various parts of the world, understanding the mechanisms of obedience is more crucial than ever.

The basic principles that govern your behavior , including obedience to authority, continue to shape our social interactions and societal structures. By studying these principles, we can develop strategies to promote ethical behavior and resist harmful compliance.

Future directions for obedience studies in psychology are likely to focus on more nuanced aspects of compliance and resistance. Researchers may explore how individual differences in personality, moral reasoning, and critical thinking skills influence obedience behavior. The role of technology in shaping our responses to authority figures is another promising area of investigation.

Behavioral science projects focusing on obedience could yield valuable insights into how we can foster environments that encourage ethical decision-making and moral courage. For instance, studies might explore how education and training can enhance individuals’ ability to question authority and make independent moral judgments.

The Power of Critical Thinking and Moral Responsibility

As we reflect on the lessons learned from decades of obedience research, one thing becomes clear: the importance of critical thinking and moral responsibility in the face of authority cannot be overstated. While obedience can serve important social functions, blind compliance with unethical orders can lead to disastrous consequences.

Cultivating a society that values independent moral reasoning alongside respect for legitimate authority is a challenging but crucial task. It requires a delicate balance between maintaining social order and encouraging individuals to question and challenge unethical directives.

Education plays a vital role in this process. By teaching critical thinking skills and ethical reasoning from an early age, we can equip individuals with the tools they need to navigate complex moral situations. Behavioral experiments in educational settings can help students understand the dynamics of obedience and develop strategies for resisting harmful compliance.

Moreover, fostering a culture that values moral courage is essential. This means celebrating those who stand up against unethical orders and creating systems that protect whistleblowers and dissenters. By doing so, we can create a society that is more resilient to the dangers of destructive obedience.

Conclusion: The Ongoing Journey of Understanding Human Behavior

The study of obedience has come a long way since Milgram’s groundbreaking experiments, but many questions remain unanswered. As we continue to grapple with the complexities of human behavior, obedience research serves as a powerful reminder of our capacity for both compliance and resistance.

Human behavior and mind study is an ongoing journey, one that requires constant vigilance and self-reflection. By understanding the factors that influence our obedience to authority, we can work towards creating a world where ethical considerations trump blind compliance.

As we move forward, it’s crucial to remember that the power to resist harmful orders lies within each of us. By cultivating critical thinking skills, fostering moral courage, and remaining vigilant against the abuse of authority, we can harness the positive aspects of obedience while guarding against its dangers.

The haunting question that opened this exploration may never be fully answered, but our ongoing efforts to understand and address the complexities of obedience bring us closer to a society where moral conscience prevails over unquestioning compliance. In this pursuit, we not only advance our scientific understanding of human behavior but also contribute to the creation of a more just and ethical world.

References:

1. Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral Study of Obedience. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), 371-378.

2. Blass, T. (1999). The Milgram Paradigm After 35 Years: Some Things We Now Know About Obedience to Authority. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29(5), 955-978.

3. Burger, J. M. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today? American Psychologist, 64(1), 1-11.

4. Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2012). Contesting the “Nature” of Conformity: What Milgram and Zimbardo’s Studies Really Show. PLoS Biology, 10(11), e1001426.

5. Zimbardo, P. G. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Random House.

6. Slater, M., Antley, A., Davison, A., Swapp, D., Guger, C., Barker, C., … & Sanchez-Vives, M. V. (2006). A Virtual Reprise of the Stanley Milgram Obedience Experiments. PloS one, 1(1), e39.

7. Passini, S., & Morselli, D. (2009). Authority Relationships Between Obedience and Disobedience. New Ideas in Psychology, 27(1), 96-106.

8. Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2009). The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. Free Press.

9. Cialdini, R. B. (2009). Influence: Science and Practice (5th ed.). Pearson Education.

10. Bandura, A. (1999). Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(3), 193-209.

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Hofling Hospital Experiment (1966)

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

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Charles K. Hofling (1966) created a more realistic study of obedience than Milgram’s by conducting field studies on nurses unaware that they were involved in an experiment.

The main aim of the Hofling Hospital Experiment was to investigate obedience to authority in a real-world setting, specifically within a hospital environment.

The experiment was designed to test the extent to which the nurses would obey the doctor’s commands, even if they were asked to perform an action that could potentially harm a patient.

An unknown “doctor” (actually a confederate in the experiment) called the hospital and ordered the nurses to administer a dangerously high dose of a (fictional) drug to a patient. The dose was twice the maximum daily limit stated on the drug’s label.

The procedure involved a field experiment involving 22 (real) night nurses. Dr. Smith (the researcher) phoned the nurses at a psychiatric hospital (on night duty) and asked them to check the medicine cabinet to see if they had the drug astroten.

When the nurse checks, she sees that the maximum dosage is supposed to be 10mg. When they speak with the ‘Doctor’, they are told to administer 20mg of the drug to a patient called ‘Mr. Jones’. Dr. Smith is in a desperate hurry, and he will sign the authorization form when he comes to see Mr. Jones later.

The phone call ended when the nurse either (i) obeyed the doctor’s order; (ii) resisted the order; (iii) went to get advice; (iv) became upset; (v) could not find the medication; (vi) or if the call lasted longer than 10 minutes.

The medication was not real, though the nurses thought it was. The drug itself was a harmless sugar pill (it was a placebo) invented just for the experiment.

An observer on the ward stopped the study when the nurse got the medication and approached the patient; the nurse began to contact another professional, or it had been over 10 minutes since the call.

If the nurse administers the drug, they will have broken three hospital rules:

1. They are not allowed to accept instructions over the phone. 2. The dose was double the maximum limit stated on the box. 3. The medicine itself as unauthorized, i.e. not on the ward stock list.

The study also used a control group to compare the findings from the experimental group.

In another hospital, 21 student nurses and 12 graduate nurses were asked to complete a questionnaire about what they would do if confronted with the experimental situation.

These participants were not exposed to the actual experimental situation (the doctor’s phone call).

Instead, they were given a questionnaire asking them how they would respond if faced with the same scenario described in the experiment.

In the experimental group, 21 out of 22 (95%) nurses obeyed the doctor’s orders and were about to administer the medication to the patient when a hidden observer stopped them.

Only one nurse questioned the identity of the researcher (“Doctor Smith”) and why he was on the ward.

The nurses were not supposed to take instructions by phone, let alone exceed the allowed dose.

11 nurses who went to administer the drug admitted to being aware of the dosage for Astroten. The other 10 did not notice but judged that it was safe as a doctor had ordered them to do so.

When other nurses were asked to discuss what they would do in a similar situation (i.e. a control group), 31 out of 33 said they would not comply with the order.

Hofling et al. demonstrated that people are very unwilling to question supposed ‘authority’, even when they might have good reason to.

When the nurses were interviewed later, they pointed out that many doctors were in the habit of giving orders by telephone and became seriously annoyed if they were not obeyed.

Although such obedience was against regulations, the unequal power relations between doctors and nurses meant life would be very difficult if nurses did not do what they were told.

Hofling’s study showed how the social pressure brought about by the imbalance of power could lead to a nurse actually putting a patient at risk, rather than disobeying orders.

High ecological validity

A strength of this study is its high ecological validity, which is due to the fact that it was conducted in a real-life environment.

The study was conducted in a real hospital environment, and the nurses were unaware they were participating in an experiment, so there were no demand characteristics as they did their everyday jobs, acting normally.

Replicability

Another strength of the Hofling Hospital Experiment is its high level of replicability. Replicability refers to the ability of a study to be repeated by other researchers.

In this study, the procedure was standardized, with the “doctor” giving the same scripted instructions to each nurse over the phone so it could be replicated.

Furthermore, the decision of when to end the phone call was operationalized, meaning that there was a clear, objective criterion for determining when the call should be terminated. This operationalization contributes to the replicability of the study, as other researchers can follow the same procedure and criteria when conducting a replication.

The high level of replicability in the Hofling Hospital Experiment allows for further testing of the findings and helps to establish the reliability of the results.

Control group

The inclusion of a control group in the Hofling Hospital Experiment is another strength of the study. The control group, consisting of nurses who were not exposed to the experimental manipulation (the doctor’s phone call), allowed for comparisons to be made between the experimental and control conditions.

The nurses in the experimental and control groups were closely matched on various participant variables, such as age, sex, marital status, length of working week, professional experience, and area of origin. This matching process, known as matched participants, helps minimize the influence of individual differences on the results.

The control group was comprised of 33 nurses, whereas there was only data for 22 nurses in the experiment. This indicates that the study had a high rate of attrition (i.e., high dropout rate).

Ethical issues

The study broke the ethical guideline of deception, as the doctor was real. Also, some nurses were left distressed by the study, so they lacked protection from harm.

The experiment placed the nurses in a highly stressful situation, where they faced a conflict between obeying the doctor’s orders and adhering to hospital rules and their own training. This stress could have had negative psychological consequences for the participants.

While the nurses were debriefed within 30 minutes of the phone call, this does not necessarily negate the potential harm caused by the deception and stress experienced during the experiment.

Lacks reliability

Rank and Jacobson (1977) tried to replicate Hoflings study using a real drug which the nurses had heard of, but did not get similar results.

They believed that the nurse’s knowledge of the drug, specifically the consequence of an overdose, meant they could justify their defiance to the doctor more easily.

This knowledge provided them with a stronger justification to defy the doctor’s orders, as they could cite the potential harm to the patient as a reason for not complying.

This variation in findings between the original study and the replication attempt indicates low reliability, as reliability refers to the consistency of results when a study is repeated under similar conditions.

Hofling, C. K., Brotzman, E., Dalrymple, S., Graves, N. & Bierce, C. (1966). An experimental study of nurse-physician relations. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 143 , 171-180.

Rank, S. G., & Jacobson, C. K. (1977). Hospital nurses” compliance with medication overdose orders: a failure to replicate . Journal of Health and Social Behavior , 188-193.

The Obedience Experiments at 50

• Personality/Social
• Social Behavior
• Social Influences
• Social Interaction

This year is the 50 th anniversary of the start of Stanley Milgram’s groundbreaking experiments on obedience to destructive orders — the most famous, controversial and, arguably, most important psychological research of our times. To commemorate this milestone, in this article I present the key elements comprising the legacy of those experiments.

Milgram was a 28-year-old junior faculty member at Yale University when he began his program of research on obedience, supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which lasted from August 7, 1961 through May 27, 1962.

As we know, in his obedience experiments Milgram made the startling discovery that a majority of his subjects — average and, presumably, normal community residents — were willing to give a series of what they believed were increasingly painful and, perhaps, harmful electric shocks to a vehemently protesting victim simply because they were commanded to do so by an authority (although no shock was actually given). They did this despite the fact that the experimenter had no coercive powers to enforce his commands and the person they were shocking was an innocent victim who did nothing to merit such punishment. Although Milgram conducted over 20 variations of his basic procedure, his central finding obtained in several standard, or baseline, conditions was that about two-thirds of the subjects fully obeyed the experimenter, progressing step-by-step up to the maximum shock of 450 volts.

First and foremost, the obedience experiments taught us that we have a powerful propensity to obey authority. Did we need Milgram to tell us this? Of course, not. What he did teach us is just how strong this tendency is — so strong, in fact, that it can make us act in ways contrary to our moral principles.

Milgram’s findings provided a powerful affirmation of one of the main guiding principles of contemporary social psychology: That often it is not the kind of person we are that determines how we act, but rather the kind of situation we find ourselves in. To perceive behavior as flowing from within — from our character or personality — is to paint an incomplete picture of the determinants of our behavior. Milgram showed that external pressures coming from a legitimate authority can make us behave in ways we would not even consider when acting on our own.

Foreshadowing the widespread attention the obedience experiments were to receive  was an early article appearing in the New York Times , titled “Sixty-five Percent in Test Blindly Obey to Inflict Pain,” right after the publication of Milgram’s first journal report. Although Milgram had just begun his academic career and he would go on to do other innovative research studies — such as “The small-world problem” and “The lost letter technique” — they would always be overshadowed by the obedience work. Of the 140 or so talks he gave during his lifetime, more than a third dealt with obedience. His book Obedience to authority: An experimental view has been translated into 11 languages.

I believe that one of the most important aspects of Milgram’s legacy is that, in demonstrating our extreme readiness to obey authorities, he has identified one of the universals, or constants, of human behavior, straddling time and place. I have done two analyses to support this contention. In one, I correlated the results of Milgram’s standard obedience experiments and the replications conducted by others with their date of publication. The results: There was absolutely no relationship between when a study was conducted and the amount of obedience it yielded. In a second analysis, I compared the outcomes of obedience experiments conducted in the United States with those conducted in other countries. Remarkably, the average obedience rates were very similar: In the U.S. studies, some 61 percent of the subjects were fully obedient, while elsewhere the obedience rate was 66 percent.

A more recent, modified replication of one of Milgram’s conditions (Exp.#5, “A new base-line condition”) conducted by Jerry Burger, a social psychologist at the Santa Clara University supports the universality argument. Burger’s replication added safeguards not contained in Milgram’s original experiment. Although carried out 45 years after Milgram conducted the original Exp. #5, Burger’s findings did not differ significantly from Milgram’s.

From the beginning, the obedience studies have been embroiled in controversy about its ethics. They were vilified by some and praised by others. A well-known ethicist commented rhetorically: “Is this perhaps going too far in what one asks a subject to do and how one deceives him?” A Welsh playwright expressed his disdain by arguing that many people “may feel that in order to demonstrate that subjects may behave like so many Eichmanns, the experimenter had to act the part, to some extent, of a Himmler.” On the other hand, Milgram received supportive letters from fellow social psychologists such as Elliot Aronson and Philip Zimbardo. And in 1964, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) awarded him its annual social psychology award for his most complete report on the experiments up to that time, “Some Conditions of Obedience and Disobedience to Authority.”

The furor stirred up by the obedience experiments, together with a few other ethically problematic studies, has resulted in a greater sensitivity to the well-being of the human research participant today. More concretely, the obedience experiments are generally considered one of the handful of controversial studies that led Congress to enact the National Research Act in 1974, which mandated the creation of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). Harold Takooshian, one of Milgram’s outstanding students at CUNY, recalls him saying that “IRBs are an impressive solution to a non-problem.”

A distinctive aspect of the legacy of the obedience experiments is that they can be applied to real life in a number of ways. They provide a reference point for certain phenomena that, on the face of it, strain our understanding — thereby, making them more plausible. For example, Milgram’s findings can help us fathom how it was possible for managers of fast-food restaurants throughout the United States to fall for a bizarre hoax over a nine-year period between 1995 and 2004. In a typical case, the manager of an eatery received a phone call from a man claiming to be a police officer, who ordered him to strip-search a female employee who supposedly stole a pocketbook. In over 70 instances, the manager obeyed the unknown caller.

The implications of Milgram’s research have been greatest for understanding the Holocaust. In his book “Ordinary Men,” Christopher Browning, a historian, describing the behavior of a Nazi mobile unit roaming the Polish countryside that killed 38,000 Jews in cold blood at the bidding of their commander, concluded that “many of Milgram’s insights find graphic confirmation in the behavior and testimony of the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101.”

Legal scholarship and practice has made wide use of the obedience studies. Several Supreme Court briefs, as well as over 350 law reviews have referenced them. The U.S. Army also has taken the lessons of Milgram’s research to heart. In response to a letter-writer’s question in December 1985, the head of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at West Point wrote: “All cadets…are required to take two psychology courses…. Both of these courses discuss Milgram’s work and the implications of his findings.”

There is typically a gray cloud of gloom hovering over any discussions of Milgram’s research. This is not surprising since Milgram himself repeatedly and almost exclusively drew troubling implications. So let me end on a more positive note.

Milgram recognized that obedience is a necessary element of civilized society. As he once wrote: “We cannot have society without some structure of authority, and every society must inculcate a habit of obedience in its citizens.” So, once he felt that he had probed the destructive side of obedience in sufficient detail, he was ready to turn his attention to its positive aspects.

Milgram submitted a continuation grant proposal to NSF in early 1962, after he had completed almost all of the experimental conditions dealing with destructive obedience. One of the proposed experiments he listed in that grant proposal was titled “Constructive Obedience.” The grant proposal was only approved in modified form with reduced funding, so Milgram never did carry out such an experiment. But, nonetheless, the fact that he planned such an experiment is informative, because it implied that Milgram apparently thought that the unexpected strength of the obedient tendencies he had discovered so far was just one part of a more general, full-spectrum predisposition.

In this APS article on “the obedience experiments at 50,” Milgram’s perspicuous biographer Thomas Blass once again gives us reason to admire this assistant professor’s brilliant work that has resonanated throughout society since the 1960s. What one other psychology experiment has had greater impact on society–to the point that it even revolutionized our ethical codes regulating research. This experiment is now an anomaly “frozen in time:” it can no longer be precisely replicated in the USA, yet any introductory psychology textbook today would be considered simply incomplete without citing its unique insights into human behavior. Those who studied with Milgram know what a highly ethical man he was from the start, going far beyond the ethical standards of 1960 to safeguard the welfare of his participants–with debriefing and follow-ups. Do Milgram’s critics in 2011 resemble those who seek to remove George Washington’s name from monuments because Mount Vernon had slaves in 1776–judging yesterday’s hero by today’s standards? (If so, let’s hope our grandchildren do not hate us in 2060 for eating carcasses we call hamburgers and driving fossil-fuel vehicles.) In my lectures at Russian universities in 2010, I was pleased to find Milgram today was revered as a hero whose work was indispensible to understanding three decades of Stalinism. Similarly, U.S. psychology would do well not to vilify this brilliant yet short-lived scientist who, more than anyone, helped shaped the ethiocal standards we have today.

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About the Author

Thomas Blass, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, is the author of Milgram’s biography, The man who shocked the world: The life and legacy of Stanley Milgram (Basic Books, 2004, 2009). He also edited the third, expanded edition of Milgram’s anthology, The individual in a social world: Essays and Experiments (Pinter and Martin, 2010), the most complete collection of Milgram’s writings. In addition, Blass maintains a website about Milgram, www.stanleymilgram.com . He can be reached at [email protected] .

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Milgram experiment , controversial series of experiments examining obedience to authority conducted by social psychologist Stanley Milgram . In the experiment, an authority figure, the conductor of the experiment, would instruct a volunteer participant, labeled the “teacher,” to administer painful, even dangerous, electric shocks to the “learner,” who was actually an actor. Although the shocks were faked, the experiments are widely considered unethical today due to the lack of proper disclosure, informed consent, and subsequent debriefing related to the deception and trauma experienced by the teachers. Some of Milgram’s conclusions have been called into question. Nevertheless, the experiments and their results have been widely cited for their insight into how average people respond to authority.

Milgram conducted his experiments as an assistant professor at Yale University in the early 1960s. In 1961 he began to recruit men from New Haven , Connecticut , for participation in a study he claimed would be focused on memory and learning . The recruits were paid $4.50 at the beginning of the study and were generally between the ages of 20 and 50 and from a variety of employment backgrounds. When they volunteered, they were told that the experiment would test the effect of punishment on learning ability. In truth, the volunteers were the subjects of an experiment on obedience to authority. In all, about 780 people, only about 40 of them women, participated in the experiments, and Milgram published his results in 1963.

Volunteers were told that they would be randomly assigned either a “teacher” or “learner” role, with each teacher administering electric shocks to a learner in another room if the learner failed to answer questions correctly. In actuality, the random draw was fixed so that all the volunteer participants were assigned to the teacher role and the actors were assigned to the learner role. The teachers were then instructed in the electroshock “punishment” they would be administering, with 30 shock levels ranging from 15 to 450 volts. The different shock levels were labeled with descriptions of their effects, such as “Slight Shock,” “Intense Shock,” and “Danger: Severe Shock,” with the final label a grim “XXX.” Each teacher was given a 45-volt shock themselves so that they would better understand the punishment they believed the learner would be receiving. Teachers were then given a series of questions for the learner to answer, with each incorrect answer generally earning the learner a progressively stronger shock. The actor portraying the learner, who was seated out of sight of the teacher, had pre-recorded responses to these shocks that ranged from grunts of pain to screaming and pleading, claims of suffering a heart condition, and eventually dead silence. The experimenter, acting as an authority figure, would encourage the teachers to continue administering shocks, telling them with scripted responses that the experiment must continue despite the reactions of the learner. The infamous result of these experiments was that a disturbingly high number of the teachers were willing to proceed to the maximum voltage level, despite the pleas of the learner and the supposed danger of proceeding.

Milgram’s interest in the subject of authority, and his dark view of the results of his experiments, were deeply informed by his Jewish identity and the context of the Holocaust , which had occurred only a few years before. He had expected that Americans, known for their individualism , would differ from Germans in their willingness to obey authority when it might lead to harming others. Milgram and his students had predicted only 1–3% of participants would administer the maximum shock level. However, in his first official study, 26 of 40 male participants (65%) were convinced to do so and nearly 80% of teachers that continued to administer shocks after 150 volts—the point at which the learner was heard to scream—continued to the maximum of 450 volts. Teachers displayed a range of negative emotional responses to the experiment even as they continued to obey, sometimes pleading with the experimenters to stop the experiment while still participating in it. One teacher believed that he had killed the learner and was moved to tears when he eventually found out that he had not.

Milgram included several variants on the original design of the experiment. In one, the teachers were allowed to select their own voltage levels. In this case, only about 2.5% of participants used the maximum shock level, indicating that they were not inclined to do so without the prompting of an authority figure. In another, there were three teachers, two of whom were not test subjects, but instead had been instructed to protest against the shocks. The existence of peers protesting the experiment made the volunteer teachers less likely to obey. Teachers were also less likely to obey in a variant where they could see the learner and were forced to interact with him.

The Milgram experiment has been highly controversial, both for the ethics of its design and for the reliability of its results and conclusions. It is commonly accepted that the ethics of the experiment would be rejected by mainstream science today, due not only to the handling of the deception involved but also to the extreme stress placed on the teachers, who often reacted emotionally to the experiment and were not debriefed . Some teachers were actually left believing they had genuinely and repeatedly shocked a learner before having the truth revealed to them later. Later researchers examining Milgram’s data also found that the experimenters conducting the tests had sometimes gone off-script in their attempts to coerce the teachers into continuing, and noted that some teachers guessed that they were the subjects of the experiment. However, attempts to validate Milgram’s findings in more ethical ways have often produced similar results.

The Milgram Experiment: How Far Will You Go to Obey an Order?

Understand the infamous study and its conclusions about human nature

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A brief Milgram experiment summary is as follows: In the 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of studies on the concepts of obedience and authority. His experiments involved instructing study participants to deliver increasingly high-voltage shocks to an actor in another room, who would scream and eventually go silent as the shocks became stronger. The shocks weren't real, but study participants were made to believe that they were.

Today, the Milgram experiment is widely criticized on both ethical and scientific grounds. However, Milgram's conclusions about humanity's willingness to obey authority figures remain influential and well-known.

Key Takeaways: The Milgram Experiment

• The goal of the Milgram experiment was to test the extent of humans' willingness to obey orders from an authority figure.
• Participants were told by an experimenter to administer increasingly powerful electric shocks to another individual. Unbeknownst to the participants, shocks were fake and the individual being shocked was an actor.
• The majority of participants obeyed, even when the individual being shocked screamed in pain.
• The experiment has been widely criticized on ethical and scientific grounds.

Detailed Milgram’s Experiment Summary

In the most well-known version of the Milgram experiment, the 40 male participants were told that the experiment focused on the relationship between punishment, learning, and memory. The experimenter then introduced each participant to a second individual, explaining that this second individual was participating in the study as well. Participants were told that they would be randomly assigned to roles of "teacher" and "learner." However, the "second individual" was an actor hired by the research team, and the study was set up so that the true participant would always be assigned to the "teacher" role.

During the Milgram experiment, the learner was located in a separate room from the teacher (the real participant), but the teacher could hear the learner through the wall. The experimenter told the teacher that the learner would memorize word pairs and instructed the teacher to ask the learner questions. If the learner responded incorrectly to a question, the teacher would be asked to administer an electric shock. The shocks started at a relatively mild level (15 volts) but increased in 15-volt increments up to 450 volts. (In actuality, the shocks were fake, but the participant was led to believe they were real.)

Participants were instructed to give a higher shock to the learner with each wrong answer. When the 150-volt shock was administered, the learner would cry out in pain and ask to leave the study. He would then continue crying out with each shock until the 330-volt level, at which point he would stop responding.

During this process, whenever participants expressed hesitation about continuing with the study, the experimenter would urge them to go on with increasingly firm instructions, culminating in the statement, "You have no other choice, you must go on." The study ended when participants refused to obey the experimenter’s demand, or when they gave the learner the highest level of shock on the machine (450 volts).

Milgram found that participants obeyed the experimenter at an unexpectedly high rate: 65% of the participants gave the learner the 450-volt shock.

Critiques of the Milgram Experiment

The Milgram experiment has been widely criticized on ethical grounds. Milgram’s participants were led to believe that they acted in a way that harmed someone else, an experience that could have had long-term consequences. Moreover, an investigation by writer Gina Perry uncovered that some participants appear to not have been fully debriefed after the study —they were told months later, or not at all, that the shocks were fake and the learner wasn’t harmed. Milgram’s studies could not be perfectly recreated today, because researchers today are required to pay much more attention to the safety and well-being of human research subjects.

Researchers have also questioned the scientific validity of Milgram’s results. In her examination of the study, Perry found that Milgram’s experimenter may have gone off script and told participants to obey many more times than the script specified. Additionally, some research suggests that participants may have figured out that the learner was not harmed: in interviews conducted after the Milgram experiment, some participants reported that they didn’t think the learner was in any real danger. This mindset is likely to have affected their behavior in the study.

Variations on the Milgram Experiment

Milgram and other researchers conducted numerous versions of the experiment over time. The participants' levels of compliance with the experimenter’s demands varied greatly from one study to the next. For example, when participants were in closer proximity to the learner (e.g. in the same room), they were less likely to give the learner the highest level of shock.

Another version of the Milgram experiment brought three "teachers" into the experiment room at once. One was a real participant, and the other two were actors hired by the research team. During the experiment, the two non-participant teachers would quit as the level of shocks began to increase. Milgram found that these conditions made the real participant far more likely to "disobey" the experimenter, too: only 10% of participants gave the 450-volt shock to the learner.

In yet another version of the Milgram experiment, two experimenters were present, and during the experiment, they would begin arguing with one another about whether it was right to continue the study. In this version, none of the participants gave the learner the 450-volt shock.

Replicating the Milgram Experiment

Researchers have sought to replicate Milgram's original study with additional safeguards in place to protect participants. In 2009, Jerry Burger replicated Milgram’s famous experiment at Santa Clara University with new safeguards in place: the highest shock level was 150 volts, and participants were told that the shocks were fake immediately after the experiment ended. Additionally, participants were screened by a clinical psychologist before the experiment began, and those found to be at risk of a negative reaction to the study were deemed ineligible to participate.

Burger found that participants obeyed at similar levels as Milgram’s participants: 82.5% of Milgram’s participants gave the learner the 150-volt shock, and 70% of Burger’s participants did the same.

The Legacy of the Milgram Experiment

Milgram’s interpretation of his research was that everyday people are capable of carrying out unthinkable actions in certain circumstances. His research has been used to explain atrocities such as the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, though these applications are by no means widely accepted or agreed upon.

Importantly, not all participants obeyed the experimenter’s demands , and Milgram’s studies shed light on the factors that enable people to stand up to authority. In fact, as sociologist Matthew Hollander writes, we may be able to learn from the participants who disobeyed, as their strategies may enable us to respond more effectively to an unethical situation. The Milgram experiment suggested that human beings are susceptible to obeying authority, but it also demonstrated that obedience is not inevitable.

• Baker, Peter C. “Electric Schlock: Did Stanley Milgram's Famous Obedience Experiments Prove Anything?” Pacific Standard (2013, Sep. 10). https://psmag.com/social-justice/electric-schlock-65377
• Burger, Jerry M. "Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?."  American Psychologist 64.1 (2009): 1-11. http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2008-19206-001
• Gilovich, Thomas, Dacher Keltner, and Richard E. Nisbett. Social Psychology . 1st edition, W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.
• Hollander, Matthew. “How to Be a Hero: Insight From the Milgram Experiment.” HuffPost Contributor Network (2015, Apr. 29). https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-to-be-a-hero-insight-_b_6566882
• Jarrett, Christian. “New Analysis Suggests Most Milgram Participants Realised the ‘Obedience Experiments’ Were Not Really Dangerous.” The British Psychological Society: Research Digest (2017, Dec. 12). https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/12/12/interviews-with-milgram-participants-provide-little-support-for-the-contemporary-theory-of-engaged-followership/
• Perry, Gina. “The Shocking Truth of the Notorious Milgram Obedience Experiments.” Discover Magazine Blogs (2013, Oct. 2). http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2013/10/02/the-shocking-truth-of-the-notorious-milgram-obedience-experiments/
• Romm, Cari. “Rethinking One of Psychology's Most Infamous Experiments.” The Atlantic (2015, Jan. 28) . https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/rethinking-one-of-psychologys-most-infamous-experiments/384913/
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Article contents

Milgram’s experiments on obedience to authority.

• Stephen Gibson Stephen Gibson Heriot-Watt University, School of Social Sciences
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.511
• Published online: 30 June 2020

Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience to authority are among the most influential and controversial social scientific studies ever conducted. They remain staples of introductory psychology courses and textbooks, yet their influence reaches far beyond psychology, with myriad other disciplines finding lessons in them. Indeed, the experiments have long since broken free of the confines of academia, occupying a place in popular culture that is unrivaled among psychological experiments. The present article begins with an overview of Milgram’s account of his experimental procedure and findings, before focussing on recent scholarship that has used materials from Milgram’s archive to challenge many of the long-held assumptions about the experiments. Three areas in which our understanding of the obedience experiments has undergone a radical shift in recent years are the subject of particular focus. First, work that has identified new ethical problems with Milgram’s studies is summarized. Second, hitherto unknown methodological variations in Milgram’s experimental procedures are considered. Third, the interactions that took place in the experimental sessions themselves are explored. This work has contributed to a shift in how we see the obedience experiments. Rather than viewing the experiments as demonstrations of people’s propensity to follow orders, it is now clear that people did not follow orders in Milgram’s experiments. The experimenter did a lot more than simply issue orders, and when he did, participants found it relatively straightforward to defy them. These arguments are discussed in relation to the definition of obedience that has typically been adopted in psychology, the need for further historical work on Milgram’s experiments, and the possibilities afforded by the development of a broader project of secondary qualitative analysis of laboratory interaction in psychology experiments.

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• Published: 18 February 2016

Modern Milgram experiment sheds light on power of authority

• Alison Abbott  

Nature volume  530 ,  pages 394–395 ( 2016 ) Cite this article

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• Neuroscience

People obeying commands feel less responsibility for their actions.

More than 50 years after a controversial psychologist shocked the world with studies that revealed people’s willingness to harm others on order, a team of cognitive scientists has carried out an updated version of the iconic ‘Milgram experiments’.

Their findings may offer some explanation for Stanley Milgram's uncomfortable revelations: when following commands, they say, people genuinely feel less responsibility for their actions — whether they are told to do something evil or benign.

“If others can replicate this, then it is giving us a big message,” says neuroethicist Walter Sinnot-Armstrong of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who was not involved in the work. “It may be the beginning of an insight into why people can harm others if coerced: they don’t see it as their own action.”

The study may feed into a long-running legal debate about the balance of personal responsibility between someone acting under instruction and their instructor, says Patrick Haggard, a cognitive neuroscientist at University College London, who led the work, published on 18 February in Current Biology 1 .

Milgram’s original experiments were motivated by the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who famously argued that he was ‘just following orders’ when he sent Jews to their deaths. The new findings don’t legitimize harmful actions, Haggard emphasizes, but they do suggest that the ‘only obeying orders’ excuse betrays a deeper truth about how a person feels when acting under command.

Ordered to shock

In a series of experiments at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in the 1960s, Milgram told his participants that a man was being trained to learn word pairs in a neighbouring room. The participants had to press a button to deliver an electric shock of escalating strength to the learner when he made an error; when they did so, they heard his cries of pain. In reality, the learner was an actor, and no shock was ever delivered. Milgram’s aim was to see how far people would go when they were ordered to step up the voltage.

Routinely, an alarming two-thirds of participants continued to step up shocks, even after the learner was apparently rendered unconscious. But Milgram did not assess his participants’ subjective feelings as they were coerced into doing something unpleasant. And his experiments have been criticized for the deception that they involved — not just because participants may have been traumatized, but also because some may have guessed that the pain wasn’t real.

Modern teams have conducted partial and less ethically complicated replications of Milgram’s work. But Haggard and his colleagues wanted to find out what participants were feeling. They designed a study in which volunteers knowingly inflicted real pain on each other, and were completely aware of the experiment’s aims.

Because Milgram’s experiments were so controversial, Haggard says that he took “quite a deep breath before deciding to do the study”. But he says that the question of who bears personal responsibility is so important to the rule of law that he thought it was “worth trying to do some good experiments to get to the heart of the matter.”

Sense of agency

In his experiments, the volunteers (all were female, as were the experimenters, to avoid gender effects) were given £20 (US$29). In pairs, they sat facing each other across a table, with a keyboard between them. A participant designated the ‘agent’ could press one of two keys; one did nothing. But for some pairs, the other key would transfer 5p to the agent from the other participant, designated the ‘victim’; for others, the key would also deliver a painful but bearable electric shock to the victim’s arm. (Because people have different tolerances to pain, the level of the electric shock was determined for each individual before the experiment began.) In one experiment, an experimenter stood next to the agent and told her which key to press. In another, the experimenter looked away and gave the agent a free choice about which key to press.

To examine the participants’ ‘sense of agency’ — the unconscious feeling that they were in control of their own actions — Haggard and his colleagues designed the experiment so that pressing either key caused a tone to sound after a few hundred milliseconds, and both volunteers were asked to judge the length of this interval. Psychologists have established that people perceive the interval between an action and its outcome as shorter when they carry out an intentional action of their own free will, such as moving their arm, than when the action is passive, such as having their arm moved by someone else.

When they were ordered to press a key, the participants seemed to judge their action as more passive than when they had free choice — they perceived the time to the tone as longer.

In a separate experiment, volunteers followed similar protocols while electrodes on their heads recorded their neural activity through EEG (electroencephalography). When ordered to press a key, their EEG recordings were quieter — suggesting, says Haggard, that their brains were not processing the outcome of their action. Some participants later reported feeling reduced responsibility for their action.

Unexpectedly, giving the order to press the key was enough to cause the effects, even when the keystroke led to no physical or financial harm. “It seems like your sense of responsibility is reduced whenever someone orders you to do something — whatever it is they are telling you to do,” says Haggard.

The study might inform legal debate, but it also has wider relevance to other domains of society, says Sinnot-Armstrong. For example, companies that want to create — or avoid — a feeling of personal responsibility among their employees could take its lessons on board.

Caspar, E. A., Christensen, J. F., Cleeremans, A. & Haggard, P. Curr. Biol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.12.067 (2016).

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• > Arguing, Obeying and Defying
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Book contents

• Arguing, Obeying and Defying
• Copyright page
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Obedience Experiments
• 2 Re-Evaluating Milgram
• 3 A Rhetorical Perspective
• 4 From Standardised Procedure to Flexible Rhetoric
• 5 From Proximity to Argumentation
• 6 From Passive Agents to Active Rhetoricians
• 7 From a Physical to a Rhetorical Metaphor
• Appendix Transcription Conventions

1 - The Obedience Experiments

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Author Interviews

Taking a closer look at milgram's shocking obedience study.

Behind the Shock Machine

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In the early 1960s, Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist at Yale, conducted a series of experiments that became famous. Unsuspecting Americans were recruited for what purportedly was an experiment in learning. A man who pretended to be a recruit himself was wired up to a phony machine that supposedly administered shocks. He was the "learner." In some versions of the experiment he was in an adjoining room.

The unsuspecting subject of the experiment, the "teacher," read lists of words that tested the learner's memory. Each time the learner got one wrong, which he intentionally did, the teacher was instructed by a man in a white lab coat to deliver a shock. With each wrong answer the voltage went up. From the other room came recorded and convincing protests from the learner — even though no shock was actually being administered.

The results of Milgram's experiment made news and contributed a dismaying piece of wisdom to the public at large: It was reported that almost two-thirds of the subjects were capable of delivering painful, possibly lethal shocks, if told to do so. We are as obedient as Nazi functionaries.

Or are we? Gina Perry, a psychologist from Australia, has written Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments . She has been retracing Milgram's steps, interviewing his subjects decades later.

"The thought of quitting never ... occurred to me," study participant Bill Menold told Perry in an Australian radio documentary . "Just to say: 'You know what? I'm walking out of here' — which I could have done. It was like being in a situation that you never thought you would be in, not really being able to think clearly."

In his experiments, Milgram was "looking to investigate what it was that had contributed to the brainwashing of American prisoners of war by the Chinese [in the Korean war]," Perry tells NPR's Robert Siegel.

Interview Highlights

On turning from an admirer of Milgram to a critic

"That was an unexpected outcome for me, really. I regarded Stanley Milgram as a misunderstood genius who'd been penalized in some ways for revealing something troubling and profound about human nature. By the end of my research I actually had quite a very different view of the man and the research."

Watch A Video Of One Of The Milgram Obedience Experiments

On the many variations of the experiment

"Over 700 people took part in the experiments. When the news of the experiment was first reported, and the shocking statistic that 65 percent of people went to maximum voltage on the shock machine was reported, very few people, I think, realized then and even realize today that that statistic applied to 26 of 40 people. Of those other 700-odd people, obedience rates varied enormously. In fact, there were variations of the experiment where no one obeyed."

On how Milgram's study coincided with the trial of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann — and how the experiment reinforced what Hannah Arendt described as "the banality of evil"

"The Eichmann trial was a televised trial and it did reintroduce the whole idea of the Holocaust to a new American public. And Milgram very much, I think, believed that Hannah Arendt's view of Eichmann as a cog in a bureaucratic machine was something that was just as applicable to Americans in New Haven as it was to people in Germany."

On the ethics of working with human subjects

"Certainly for people in academia and scholars the ethical issues involved in Milgram's experiment have always been a hot issue. They were from the very beginning. And Milgram's experiment really ignited a debate particularly in social sciences about what was acceptable to put human subjects through."

Gina Perry is an Australian psychologist. She has previously written for The Age and The Australian. Chris Beck/Courtesy of The New Press hide caption

Gina Perry is an Australian psychologist. She has previously written for The Age and The Australian.

On conversations with the subjects, decades after the experiment

"[Bill Menold] doesn't sound resentful. I'd say he sounds thoughtful and he has reflected a lot on the experiment and the impact that it's had on him and what it meant at the time. I did interview someone else who had been disobedient in the experiment but still very much resented 50 years later that he'd never been de-hoaxed at the time and he found that really unacceptable."

On the problem that one of social psychology's most famous findings cannot be replicated

"I think it leaves social psychology in a difficult situation. ... it is such an iconic experiment. And I think it really leads to the question of why it is that we continue to refer to and believe in Milgram's results. I think the reason that Milgram's experiment is still so famous today is because in a way it's like a powerful parable. It's so widely known and so often quoted that it's taken on a life of its own. ... This experiment and this story about ourselves plays some role for us 50 years later."

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Shocking TV Experiment Sparks Ethical Concerns

How stanley milgram 'shocked the world', research news, scientists debate 'six degrees of separation'.

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Meta-Milgram: An Empirical Synthesis of the Obedience Experiments

Nick haslam.

School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

Steve Loughnan

Conceived and designed the experiments: NH SL GP. Performed the experiments: NH SL. Analyzed the data: NH SL. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: GP. Wrote the paper: NH SL GP.

Milgram's famous experiment contained 23 small-sample conditions that elicited striking variations in obedient responding. A synthesis of these diverse conditions could clarify the factors that influence obedience in the Milgram paradigm. We assembled data from the 21 conditions ( N  = 740) in which obedience involved progression to maximum voltage (overall rate 43.6%) and coded these conditions on 14 properties pertaining to the learner, the teacher, the experimenter, the learner-teacher relation, the experimenter-teacher relation, and the experimental setting. Logistic regression analysis indicated that eight factors influenced the likelihood that teachers continued to the 450 volt shock: the experimenter's directiveness, legitimacy, and consistency; group pressure on the teacher to disobey; the indirectness, proximity, and intimacy of the relation between teacher and learner; and the distance between the teacher and the experimenter. Implications are discussed.

Introduction

The Milgram study is arguably the most iconic experiment in the history of psychology. In the fifty years since it was conducted, debate about its implications has spread far beyond the academic literature of social psychology and into the culture at large. Scholars continue to discuss whether Milgram demonstrated the capacity for evil in everyday people, the roots of the Holocaust, or the ethical limitations of psychological research. Arguments continue on the nature of authority and the meaning of obedience within Milgram's paradigm [1] and how the study's findings should be theorized [2] . Attempts have been made to replicate it with mixed results [3] , [4] and the original data have been re-examined [5] . Meanwhile, archival scholarship continues to examine the origins of Milgram's work [6] and to unearth troubling discrepancies between its public representation and how its methodology was executed in practice [7] .

The most famous of Milgram's findings is associated with the best-known version of his experiment. A substantial majority of study participants, recruited from the general public as “teachers” in a study of paired associates learning, continued to shock an unresponsive and possibly dying “learner” up to the maximum 450 volts at the behest of the “experimenter.” (Although it remains unclear and somewhat controversial how this behavior should be conceptualized, and even whether it is best described as ‘obedience’ [7] , we use that term as shorthand to describe the progression of experimental subjects to 450 volts.) This rate (62.5%) exceeded by a factor of 500 the figure estimated by psychiatrists who read the study protocol [8] . It is the shock value of this finding – the fact that a majority of ordinary people were apparently capable of destructive obedience – that has triggered the enduring interest in Milgram's work, and the desire to make sense of it.

Less well-known is the fact that this finding represents just one of 23 diverse experimental conditions that Milgram conducted, which varied enormously in levels of obedient responding. Only 18 of these were reported in the monograph that reported the study [8] . The full set of 23 conditions, numbered in the order they were carried out from August 1961 to May 1962 and in accordance with Milgram's notes from the Yale University archive, are sketched in Table 1 . Although several conditions are familiar to many psychologists, others are obscure and rarely discussed. For example, a survey of ten social psychology textbooks [9] , [10] , [11] , [12] , [13] , [14] , [15] , [16] , [17] , [18] shows that although the average text refers to 7.6 conditions, nine conditions go completely unmentioned (see Figure 1 , which lists conditions according to Milgram's numbering: see Table 1 ).

An analysis of the data from the 23 study conditions could establish which of the situational properties that vary across conditions covary with participants' rates of progression to maximum voltage. However, this task is made difficult by the ad hoc nature of the conditions [6] , which compose a patchwork of methodological elements rather than a systematic investigation of well-articulated experimental factors. Milgram often designed new conditions to explore specific situational factors that might influence obedience, such as the well-known Bridgeport replication, which repeated the original Yale study in an industrial setting. These specific variations are commonly reported as pairwise comparisons of study conditions, each of which had a small sample size (usually 40, but sometimes only 20). Thus the 47.5% obedience rate in Bridgeport is usually contrasted with the 62.5% rate for the comparable condition at Yale, and interpreted as evidence that the status, legitimacy, or prestige of the setting influences obedience. As a result, it is difficult to offer any definitive conclusions about Milgram's findings based on anything more than piecemeal analysis of small sample variations within the larger experimental program.

A better way to examine the experimental factors that influence obedience in Milgram's research would be to synthesize its findings by amalgamating his conditions in a manner akin to meta-analysis and assessing moderators of obedience in the combined sample. The combined sample of the 23 conditions is a substantial 780 participants. No analysis that synthesizes conditions from Milgram's study to examine determinants of obedience has previously been conducted. Packer [5] carried out a meta-analysis of eight conditions but focused on the critical voltage levels at which disobedient participants refused to continue rather than on differences in levels of obedience across conditions. Reicher, Haslam, and Smith [19] correlated levels of obedience in 15 of the 23 conditions with ratings by social psychologists and students of the teacher's probable level of identification with experimenter and learner, but did not examine characteristics internal to the Milgram study as predictors of obedience levels.

Deciding how to systematically characterize the variations among Milgram's conditions in a way that might illuminate differences in obedience rates is no easy task. Milgram himself did not provide a systematic classification of his conditions beyond simply clustering them into those exploring the “immediacy of the victim”, “presence of an authority figure”, and “group experiments”. Other writers have identified numerous differentiating characteristics, often labeled in multiple ways. Sometimes these characteristics have been integrated into two broad components: those that connect the teacher to the experimenter and those that link the teacher to the learner. Gilovich et al. [12] refer to these sets of features as “tuning out [or in] the experimenter” and “tuning in [or out] the learner”. Other writers offer alternative distinctions. For example, Aronson et al. [9] distinguish informational and normative influences. Myers [15] proposes that the primary factors are the victim's distance, the authority's closeness and legitimacy, institutional authority, and the liberating effect of disobedient peers. Sutton and Douglas [17] sort the relevant factors into proximity of experimenter to teacher, proximity of learner to teacher, authority of the situation, authority or status of the experimenter, and group pressure.

Rather than begin with a particular classification of factors that might influence obedience levels across the study conditions, we began with an abstract schema of Milgram's experiment and attempted to fit his experimental variations into this schema. By this means we attempted to determine inductively which of a large set of experimental features are independently associated with variations in obedience. Our schema (see Figure 2 ) started from the recognition that the Milgram experiment involves three hierarchically organized roles (Experimenter, Teacher, Learner) and two relationships between them (Experimenter-Teacher and Teacher-Learner), there being no unmediated relationship between Experimenter and Learner. By “relationship” we mean any intrinsically relational aspect of their connection, such as distance or intimacy. With one exception the factors that Milgram varied across his conditions can be located within one of the three roles or the two relationships. The exception is the setting in which the experiment was conducted (i.e., Yale versus Bridgeport). The schema therefore identifies six classes of factors that Milgram manipulated across his study conditions.

Having developed a reasonably comprehensive set of study properties to capture the variations among Milgram's conditions, we conducted a statistical analysis to determine which of these factors were independently associated with obedience levels. Treating Milgram's conditions as a single study with a large sample, rather than as a variegated collection of studies with small samples, allows a powerful test of the situational influences on obedience within his paradigm. The aim of our study was to determine which of the many potential influences were statistically reliable, rather than to test a particular theory of obedience or interpretation of the Milgram study. Nevertheless, any such theory or interpretation must be consistent with the determinants that are found to be efficacious.

Materials and Methods

Ethics statement.

This report presents a re-analysis of publically available, previously published data originally collected by Milgram and his colleagues in 1961 and 1962, prior to the advent of institutional review boards. No informed consent was required at that time by Yale University. Participants provided uninformed verbal consent and signed a waiver absolving Yale University of legal responsibility.

Selection of conditions

Milgram's study included 23 conditions in which participants completed a variation of the obedience protocol. Another variation, sometimes referred to as condition 21, assessed levels of obedience predicted by laypeople and psychiatrists rather than actual behavior, and is therefore not an experiment. Two conditions – numbers 10 (“conflicting instructions”) and 12 (“role reversal”) – differ from the others in that proceeding to the 450 V shock involves dis obeying the experimenter, and because of this fundamental difference in the meaning of the dependent measure these conditions were excluded from the analysis. The analysis therefore included 21 of the 23 conditions, and 740 of the 780 (94.9%) total participants.

Four conditions with complex, two-part designs allow two alternative ways of counting the number of obedient participants. Obedience levels from part B of condition 15 (“good experimenter, bad experimenter”) were selected because part A ended at 150 V and therefore did not allow all participants the opportunity to defy the experimenter. Parts A of conditions 17 (“teacher in charge”), 18 (“no experimenter”), and 22 (“peer authority”) were selected because they all allowed participants to proceed all the way to 450 V before part B was initiated.

To determine which variations among study conditions were independently associated with differences in obedience rates, we developed a set of codes to distinguish the conditions. Development of the codes was guided by two considerations: codes should identify distinctions recognized by Milgram or other scholars, and they should be reasonably exhaustive, ideally yielding a unique configuration of codes for each condition. The latter goal was successfully met with two exceptions. Conditions 5 and 6 (“coronary trouble” and “different actors”) were coded identically because they differed only in the actors playing the learner and experimenter roles. Conditions 18 and 19 (“no experimenter” and “authority for afar”) were coded identically because in both conditions the experimenter departs after explaining the study and leaves a phone number on which he can be contacted, with no other significant procedural differences.

A total of 14 codes were developed and organized into our six-part schema (see Figure 2 ). Some codes pertained to variations in properties of the three roles in the study: the learner, the teacher, and the experimenter. Others pertained to the relations between pairs of protagonists or roles: the teacher-learner relation and the experimenter-teacher relation. Finally, one code related to the overall setting or context of the study. With one exception, all codes were dichotomous with “0” representing the more common default position and “1” representing the deviant condition, which guided the naming of the coded properties. The codes are described according to the six-part schema below, and are summarized in Tables 2 and ​ and3, 3 , along with their associated obedience rates.

Learner properties

Two codes referred to properties of the learner. “ Vulnerability ” refers to three conditions (5 [“coronary trouble”], 6 [“different actors”] & 23 [“Bridgeport”]) in which the learner mentions heart trouble at the beginning of the experiment, augmenting the heart-related concerns that are part of the standard script in the other conditions. Thus conditions 5, 6, and 23 were coded “1” and all other conditions coded “0”. “ Rights expression ” refers specifically to condition 8 (“learner's proviso”), where at the outset the learner says he will only participate if he is able to leave when he wants. Condition 8 was therefore coded “1” and all others “0”.

Teacher properties

Three codes referred to properties of the teacher role. “ Female gender ” pertains to the single condition (20 [“women”]) that employed female participants, so this condition was coded “1” and all others “0”. “ Group pressure to obey ” refers to the distinction between two conditions (9 [“group pressure to obey”] & 11 [“group choice”]) in which multiple teachers (actually confederates) exert pressure on the participant teacher to escalate the shocks (coded “1”) and all other conditions (coded “0”), where no such pressure was exerted. “ Group pressure to disobey ” contrasted one condition (7 [“group pressure to disobey”]) involving pressure within the teacher group against obeying (coded “1”) and all other conditions (coded “0”). These group pressure variants are discussed in terms of “normative influence,” “social consensus”, or “social support” by some writers on the Milgram study.

Experimenter properties

Four experimenter properties were coded. “ Number ” distinguishes two conditions (15 [“good experimenter, bad experimenter”] & 16 [“experimenter becomes learner”]) employing two experimenters, both coded “1”, from all others, coded “0”. (Condition 18, entitled “no experimenter,” actually has an experimenter who meets the participant before being called away.) “ Illegitimacy ” – referred to as low experimenter “status” or “authority” by some writers – distinguishes two conditions (17 [“teacher in charge”] & 22 [“peer authority”], both coded “1”) in which an apparent participant (actually a confederate) takes over the experimenter role, from all other conditions, coded “0”, where the experimenter is identified as a scientist or researcher. “ Non-directiveness ” distinguishes three conditions (11 [“group choice”], 14 [“carte blanche”] & 22 [“peer authority”], all coded “1”) in which no explicit direction is given to increase the shocks (shock level is instead left to the discretion of the participants) from all other conditions, where such a direction is always given (coded “0”). Finally, “ Inconsistency ” separates one condition (15 [“good experimenter, bad experimenter”]) in which the experimenter role is internally conflicted (coded “1”) from all other conditions (coded “0”), where the role is consistent, most often because there is a single, unwavering experimenter.

Teacher-learner relation properties

Three properties of the relationship between teacher and learner were coded. “ Intimacy ” distinguishes the little-known condition 24 (“intimate relationships”), in which the learner was a friend or relative of the teacher (coded “1”), from all other conditions (coded “0”), where the two were strangers. “ Proximity ” – sometimes referred to as “immediacy” – captures degrees of distance between teacher and learner. Least proximal is condition 1 (“no feedback”, coded “0”), where the learner is in an adjoining room and does not cry out, followed by the baseline condition 2 (“voice feedback”, coded “1”) in which the learner is in an adjoining room but screams. Condition 3 (“proximity”, coded “2”) has the learner seated close behind the teacher in the same room, and condition 4 (“touch”, coded “3”) has the teacher holding the learner's hand to the shock-plate. All other conditions, which followed the baseline condition in this regard, were coded “1”. Finally, the “ Indirectness ” code distinguished condition 13 (“non-trigger position”, coded “1”), where the participant is a teacher who reads the word pairs while another administers the shocks, from all other conditions (coded “0”), where the teacher's role in shocking the learner was unmediated.

Experimenter-teacher relation properties

One code, “ Distance ”, captured variation among conditions in the relation between experimenter and teacher. Four conditions in which the experimenter absents himself during the study (17 [“teacher in charge”], 18 [“no experimenter”], 19 [“authority from afar”] and 22 [“peer authority”]) (coded “1”), are distinguished from all other conditions (coded “0”), where the experimenter is physically present in the experimental situation throughout.

Setting property

A final code pertained to the setting or context of the experiment, distinguishing condition 23 (“Bridgeport”), conducted in an industrial neighborhood (coded “1”), from all other conditions (coded “0”), which were carried out on Yale University's ivied campus. The code was called “ Low status ”, but other writers have referred to it as low “prestige”, “legitimacy”, “institutional authority”, or “authority of the situation.”

All coding was based on published descriptions of the conditions and on Milgram's original notes, accessed by the third author at the Yale University archives. The original, hand-written data summary sheets were also used to confirm obedience rates for each condition. Data file construction .

A data file ( N  = 740) was reconstructed using the known sample sizes for each condition ( n  = 40 for 16 conditions, n  = 20 for 5 conditions) and the number of participants in each condition who proceeded to deliver the 450 V shock. Obedience was coded dichotomously as delivering this highest shock, consistent with standard practice and in recognition of the marked irregularity of the distribution of highest voltages delivered, which renders continuously scored voltage level statistically problematic as a dependent measure.

Across the 21 conditions the proportion of obedient participants was 323/740 (43.6%). Table 4 presents rates of obedience as a function of each dichotomous code. Eight codes were associated with differential rates of obedience. Obedience rates were higher for more vulnerable learners ( p  = .011), for female teachers ( p  = .005), and for more indirect teacher-learner relations ( p <.001). Rates were lower when there was more group pressure for experimenters to disobey ( p <.001), when the teacher-learner relation was more intimate ( p  = .009), when the experimenter was non-directive ( p <.001) and inconsistent ( p  = .031), and when the experimenter-teacher relation was more distant ( p  = .007). A comparable test of the bivariate relationship between obedience and the one non-dichotomous code, “Proximity”, showed that greater proximity between teacher and learner was associated with lesser obedience (Spearman r  = −.37, p <.001).

In view of the redundancy among the predictor codes, a logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine which condition properties were independently associated with obedience levels. “Proximity,” was coded in increasing order of closeness from 0 to 3. Although linear, quadratic, and cubic effects for this variable were estimated within the model, only the linear effect was of interest. The model accounted for substantial variation in obedience (Nagelkerke R 2  = 0.30, p <.01) and eight of the 14 coded variables independently predicted this outcome. Findings of the analysis are summarized in Table 5 , where positive values of B signify that conditions higher in the property named by the code tend to have higher rates of obedience, and negative values signify the reverse.

Table 5 indicates that three of the four Experimenter variables were associated with obedience. Higher obedience resulted when experimenters gave authoritative directions rather than leaving shock levels to teachers ( p <.001), and lower obedience occurred when their directions were inconsistent (i.e., differing between experimenters: p  = .006). Surprisingly, obedience rates were somewhat higher when the authority was illegitimate (i.e., a peer rather than a researcher: p  = .004), an effect that might reflect collinearity among predictors given the lack of bivariate association between illegitimacy and obedience shown in Table 4 . The presence of multiple experimenters did not influence obedience levels ( p  = .56).

Similarly mixed findings were obtained for the three Teacher variables, only one of which had a significant effect. Pressure to disobey from a group of teachers substantially decreased obedience ( p <.001). However, pressure to obey from a group of teachers only marginally increased it ( p  = .052) and teacher gender had no effect ( p  = .467), the higher rate of obedience obtained for female teachers in the bivariate analysis disappearing when other variables were statistically controlled. Neither of the two Learner variables – vulnerability ( p  = .987) or rights expression ( p  = .109) – had significant effects on obedience, the bivariate vulnerability association also disappearing when other variables were held constant.

Turning to the relationship and setting variables, distance between the Experimenter and Teacher had an effect ( p  = .003), such that greater distance between them was associated with lesser obedience. All three Teacher-Learner relation variables had significant effects: conditions in which the teacher and learner were more proximal ( p  = .001), more intimate ( p  = .003), and more directly related ( p  = .001) had lower rates of obedient responding. Finally, the Setting variable, “low status”, was unrelated to obedience ( p  = .301).

Although the six code groupings – learner, teacher, experimenter, teacher-learner relation, experimenter-teacher relation, and setting properties – contain different numbers of codes, the relative magnitude of their effects offers some insight into the importance of these property types within the set of conditions that Milgram employed. Table 6 presents Nagelkerke R 2 values for each set of codes, which suggest that three property types - Experimenter, Teacher-Learner relation, and Teacher - are pre-eminent determinants of obedience rates across Milgram's 21 study conditions.

Our analysis indicates that many properties of Milgram's study conditions were associated with rates of obedient responding. These eight properties are diverse, pertaining to aspects of two of the three roles in the study – Teacher and Experimenter – as well as to both of the relationships between roles: Teacher-Experimenter and Teacher-Learner. Although our study brackets off the issue of how obedience within the Milgram study should be understood and takes no theoretical position on that issue, the number and diversity of these properties present a challenge for any encompassing account of obedience in the Milgram paradigm.

The significant predictors of obedience in our analysis are clearly disparate. The most powerful effects, in decreasing order, are the Experimenter's non-directiveness, the Teachers' group pressure to disobey, the Teacher-Learner relation's proximity and indirectness, the Teacher-Experimenter relation's distance, the Teacher-Learner relation's intimacy, and the Experimenter's illegitimacy and inconsistency. Several of these effects are well-established within the literature on the Milgram study, such as proximity, group pressure to disobey, and distance between Experimenter and Teacher. Others have been largely overlooked.

For example, few of the textbooks whose coverage was sampled in Figure 1 recognized the importance of the Experimenter's directiveness vs. non-directiveness, failing to note the very low levels of obedience in the “Carte blanche” and “Group choice” conditions. Proceeding to the 450 V shock rarely occurs if the authority figure does not give explicit commands to escalate the shocks, even if pressure to escalate is coming from fellow teachers (i.e., in the “Group choice” condition). Few textbooks noted the role of inconsistency among Experimenters in reducing obedience, neglecting to cite the “Good experimenter/bad experimenter” condition, where a benign experimenter almost completely overrode the power of the standard “bad” experimenter to induce compliance. No textbooks in our sample recognized the role of the indirectness of the relation between Teacher and Learner, failing to mention the “Non-trigger position” condition and its very high rates of obedience. Similarly, no textbooks acknowledged how the intimacy of the relationship between Teacher and Learner reduces obedience. Participants shocked learners with whom they had an existing social bond at less than one quarter the rate as when the learners were strangers. These four factors deserve greater attention in commentaries on Milgram's work.

Just as some factors that significantly predict obedience have been overlooked, other well-publicized factors were not significant predictors in our analysis or had unexpected effects. In particular, the analysis of textbook coverage shows that Milgram's replication of his study in Bridgeport, and his examination of the role of experimenter legitimacy through the “Peer authority” condition, attract substantial attention. However, the status of the setting was not associated with obedience in our systematic analysis of the 21 conditions, with levels similar regardless of the prestige of the experimental situation. Moreover, the illegitimacy of the authority was associated with higher obedience levels. Although this finding may be unreliable, it clearly contradicts the expectation that more legitimate authorities generate greater obedience in the Milgram paradigm. Although obedience was low (20%) in the “Peer authority” condition, our analysis suggests that this was probably due to the non-directive instruction in that condition rather than to the illegitimacy of the person proposing the shock levels (i.e., a peer rather than an identified researcher). In “Teacher in charge”, another condition where a peer was drafted into the authority role, obedience rates were a relatively high 55%, challenging the standard interpretation that peers, as illegitimate authorities, are not obeyed. In short, the importance of the prestige of the situation and the legitimacy of the authority may have been over-estimated in past interpretations of Milgram's work.

Such interpretations have often distinguished two components of the experimental situation. On the one hand, the Experimenter exerts a more or less authoritative influence on the Teacher, and on the other, the Learner generates more or less compassion or moral concern in that Teacher. The relative strength of these two influences is taken to determine rates of obedience, whether it is understood in terms of the Teacher's relative identification with Experimenter and Learner [19] or “tuning them in (or out)” [15] . Milgram's conditions cannot definitively answer which of these two components is the more important determinant of obedience in any general sense, as it may not comprehensively manipulate the range of properties that might capture the components or manipulate them in equally powerful ways.

Nevertheless, our analysis indicates that within the confines of 21 of Milgram's conditions, the two components are fairly similar in strength. As Table 4 shows, properties on the Experimenter side of the Teacher (i.e., Experimenter and Teacher-Experimenter relations) have similar overall predictive power as those on the Learner side (i.e., Learner and Teacher-Learner relations), with a small advantage to the Experimenter side. This general finding implies that any interpretation of the Milgram study that neglects one component or the other – that sees the study exclusively through the lens of the Experimenter's influence on the Teacher or the Teacher's disengagement from the Learner, for example – must be incomplete.

One limitation of our analysis is that by focusing on objective properties of the experimental situation it neglects the participant's interpretation of that situation and their understanding of the significance of their behavior. The ambiguity of the situation and apparent skepticism about the experimental set up among many participants [7] all raise questions about how ‘obedience’ – and variations in it across conditions – should be understood within the Milgram paradigm. For example, Milgram's own notes suggest that some conditions were difficult for participants to take seriously. Their degree of belief or disbelief, unmeasured in our analysis, may well have altered the meaning and extent of their ‘obedient’ responding. A second, unavoidable limitation of our analysis is that it could not capture some objective properties of the experimental situation. As Gibson [20] and Perry [7] have shown, the experimenter frequently did not adhere to the published details of the study protocol. Tape recordings show, for example, that he often went beyond the standard ‘four prods’ in ways that are likely to have influenced the delivery of shocks by participants.

Although it is over five decades old the Milgram study is of more than historical significance. Although its meanings remain elusive and continue to generate disagreement, stimulated by new theoretical perspectives and by revelations of methodological weaknesses, attempts to clarify what the study teaches us continue to be important. Whether or not it illuminates the influences on obedience in any general sense, we believe that our analysis helps to extract and systematize some of the patterns within Milgram's complex set of findings. These patterns may help to guide and constrain future interpretations of his study.

Funding Statement

The authors have no support or funding to report.

Rethinking One of Psychology's Most Infamous Experiments

In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram's electric-shock studies showed that people will obey even the most abhorrent of orders. But recently, researchers have begun to question his conclusions — and offer some of their own.

In 1961, Yale University psychology professor Stanley Milgram placed an advertisement in the New Haven Register . “We will pay you $4 for one hour of your time,” it read, asking for “500 New Haven men to help us complete a scientific study of memory and learning.”

Only part of that was true. Over the next two years, hundreds of people showed up at Milgram’s lab for a learning and memory study that quickly turned into something else entirely. Under the watch of the experimenter, the volunteer—dubbed “the teacher”—would read out strings of words to his partner, “the learner,” who was hooked up to an electric-shock machine in the other room. Each time the learner made a mistake in repeating the words, the teacher was to deliver a shock of increasing intensity, starting at 15 volts (labeled “slight shock” on the machine) and going all the way up to 450 volts (“Danger: severe shock”). Some people, horrified at what they were being asked to do, stopped the experiment early, defying their supervisor’s urging to go on; others continued up to 450 volts, even as the learner pled for mercy, yelled a warning about his heart condition—and then fell alarmingly silent. In the most well-known variation of the experiment, a full 65 percent of people went all the way.

Until they emerged from the lab, the participants didn’t know that the shocks weren’t real, that the cries of pain were pre-recorded, and that the learner—railroad auditor Jim McDonough —was in on the whole thing, sitting alive and unharmed in the next room. They were also unaware that they had just been used to prove the claim that would soon make Milgram famous: that ordinary people, under the direction of an authority figure, would obey just about any order they were given, even to torture. It’s a phenomenon that’s been used to explain atrocities from the Holocaust to the Vietnam War’s My Lai massacre to the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. “To a remarkable degree,” Peter Baker wrote in Pacific Standard in 2013, “Milgram’s early research has come to serve as a kind of all-purpose lightning rod for discussions about the human heart of darkness.”

In some ways, though, Milgram’s study is also—as promised—a study of memory, if not the one he pretended it was.

More than five decades after it was first published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in 1963, it’s earned a place as one of the most famous experiments of the 20th century. Milgram’s research has spawned countless spinoff studies among psychologists, sociologists, and historians, even as it’s leapt from academia into the realm of pop culture. It’s inspired songs by Peter Gabriel (lyrics: “We do what we’re told/We do what we’re told/Told to do”) and Dar Williams (“When I knew it was wrong, I played it just like a game/I pressed the buzzer”); a number of books whose titles make puns out of the word “shocking”; a controversial French documentary disguised as a game show ; episodes of Law and Order and Bones ; a made-for-TV movie with William Shatner; a jewelry collection (bizarrely) from the company Enfants Perdus; and most recently, the biopic The Experimenter , starring Peter Sarsgaard as the title character—and this list is by no means exhaustive.

But as with human memory, the study—even published, archived, enshrined in psychology textbooks—is malleable. And in the past few years, a new wave of researchers have dedicated themselves to reshaping it, arguing that Milgram’s lessons on human obedience are, in fact, misremembered—that his work doesn’t prove what he claimed it does.

The problem is, no one can really agree on what it proves instead.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the experiments’ publication (or, technically, the 51st), the Journal of Social Issues released a themed edition in September 2014 dedicated to all things Milgram. “There is a compelling and timely case for reexamining Milgram’s legacy,” the editors wrote in the introduction, noting that they were in good company: In 1964, the year after the experiments were published, fewer than 10 published studies referenced Milgram’s work; in 2012, that number was more than 60.

It’s a trend that surely would have pleased Milgram, who crafted his work with an audience in mind from the beginning. “Milgram was a fantastic dramaturg. His studies are fantastic little pieces of theater. They’re beautifully scripted,” said Stephen Reicher, a professor of psychology at the University of St. Andrews and a co-editor of the Journal of Social Issues ’ special edition. Capitalizing on the fame his 1963 publication earned him, Milgram went on to publish a book on his experiments in 1974 and a documentary, Obedience , with footage from the original experiments.

But for a man determined to leave a lasting legacy, Milgram also made it remarkably easy for people to pick it apart. The Yale University archives contain boxes upon boxes of papers, videos, and audio recordings, an entire career carefully documented for posterity. Though Milgram’s widow Alexandra donated the materials after his death in 1984, they remained largely untouched for years, until Yale’s library staff began to digitize all the materials in the early 2000s. Able to easily access troves of material for the first time, the researchers came flocking.

“There’s a lot of dirty laundry in those archives,” said Arthur Miller, a professor emeritus of psychology at Miami University and another co-editor of the Journal of Social Issues . “Critics of Milgram seem to want to—and do—find material in these archives that makes Milgram look bad or unethical or, in some cases, a liar.”

One of the most vocal of those critics is Australian author and psychologist Gina Perry, who documented her experience tracking down Milgram’s research participants in her 2013 book Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments . Her project began as an effort to write about the experiments from the perspective of the participants—but when she went back through the archives to confirm some of their stories, she said, she found some glaring issues with Milgram’s data. Among her accusations: that the supervisors went off script in their prods to the teachers, that some of the volunteers were aware that the setup was a hoax, and that others weren’t debriefed on the whole thing until months later. “My main issue is that methodologically, there have been so many problems with Milgram’s research that we have to start re-examining the textbook descriptions of the research,” she said.

But many psychologists argue that even with methodological holes and moral lapses, the basic finding of Milgram’s work, the rate of obedience, still holds up. Because of the ethical challenge of reproducing the study, the idea survived for decades on a mix of good faith and partial replications—one study had participants administer their shocks in a virtual-reality system, for example—until 2007, when ABC collaborated with Santa Clara University psychologist Jerry Burger to replicate Milgram’s experiment for an episode of the TV show Basic Instincts titled “ The Science of Evil ,” pegged to Abu Ghraib.

Burger’s way around an ethical breach: In the most well-known experiment, he found, 80 percent of the participants who reached a 150-volt shock continued all the way to the end. “So what I said we could do is take people up to the 150-volt point, see how they reacted, and end the study right there,” he said. The rest of the setup was nearly identical to Milgram’s lab of the early 1960s (with one notable exception: “Milgram had a gray lab coat and I couldn’t find a gray, so I got a light blue.”)

At the end of the experiment, Burger was left with an obedience rate around the same as the one Milgram had recorded—proving, he said, not only that Milgram’s numbers had been accurate, but that his work was as relevant as ever. “[The results] didn’t surprise me,” he said, “but for years I had heard from my students and from other people, ‘Well, that was back in the 60s, and somehow how we’re more aware of the problems of blind obedience, and people have changed.’”

In recent years, though, much of the attention has focused less on supporting or discrediting Milgram’s statistics, and more on rethinking his conclusions. With a paper published earlier this month in the British Journal of Social Psychology , Matthew Hollander, a sociology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin, is among the most recent to question Milgram’s notion of obedience. After analyzing the conversation patterns from audio recordings of 117 study participants, Hollander found that Milgram’s original classification of his subjects—either obedient or disobedient—failed to capture the true dynamics of the situation. Rather, he argued, people in both categories tried several different forms of protest—those who successfully ended the experiment early were simply better at resisting than the ones that continued shocking.

“Research subjects may say things like ‘I can’t do this anymore’ or ‘I’m not going to do this anymore,’” he said, even those who went all the way to 450 volts. “I understand those practices to be a way of trying to stop the experiment in a relatively aggressive, direct, and explicit way.”

It’s a far cry from Milgram’s idea that the capacity for evil lies dormant in everyone, ready to be awakened with the right set of circumstances. The ability to disobey toxic orders, Hollander said, is a skill that can be taught like any other—all a person needs to learn is what to say and how to say it.

In some ways, the conclusions Milgram drew were as much a product of their time as they were a product of his research. At the time he began his studies, the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major architects of the Holocaust, was already in full swing. In 1963, the same year that Milgram published his studies, writer Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe Eichmann in her book on the trial, Eichmann in Jerusalem .

Milgram, who was born in New York City in 1933 to Jewish immigrant parents, came to view his studies as a validation of Arendt’s idea—but the Holocaust had been at the forefront of his mind for years before either of them published their work. “I should have been born into the German-speaking Jewish community of Prague in 1922 and died in a gas chamber some 20 years later,” he wrote in a letter to a friend in 1958. “How I came to be born in the Bronx Hospital, I’ll never quite understand.”

And in the introduction of his 1963 paper, he invoked the Nazis within the first few paragraphs: “Obedience, as a determinant of behavior, is of particular relevance to our time,” he wrote. “Gas chambers were built, death camps were guarded; daily quotas of corpses were produced … These inhumane policies may have originated in the mind of a single person, but they could only be carried out on a massive scale if a very large number of persons obeyed orders.”

Though the term didn’t exist at the time, Milgram was a proponent of what today’s social psychologists call situationism: the idea that people’s behavior is determined largely by what’s happening around them. “They’re not psychopaths, and they’re not hostile, and they’re not aggressive or deranged. They’re just people, like you and me,” Miller said. “If you put us in certain situations, we’re more likely to be racist or sexist, or we may lie, or we may cheat. There are studies that show this, thousands and thousands of studies that document the many unsavory aspects of most people.”

But continued to its logical extreme, situationism “has an exonerating effect,” he said. “In the minds of a lot of people, it tends to excuse the bad behavior … it’s not the person’s fault for doing the bad thing, it’s the situation they were put in.” Milgram’s studies were famous because their implications were also devastating: If the Nazis were just following orders, then he had proved that anyone at all could be a Nazi. If the guards at Abu Ghraib were just following orders, then anyone was capable of torture.

The latter, Reicher said, is part of why interest in Milgram’s work has seen a resurgence in recent years. “If you look at acts of human atrocity, they’ve hardly diminished over time,” he said, and news of the abuse at Abu Ghraib was surfacing around the same time that Yale’s archival material was digitized, a perfect storm of encouragement for scholars to turn their attention once again to the question of what causes evil.

He and his colleague Alex Haslam, the third co-editor of The Journal of Social Issues ’ Milgram edition and a professor of psychology at the University of Queensland, have come up with a different answer. “The notion that we somehow automatically obey authority, that we are somehow programmed, doesn’t account for the variability [in rates of obedience] across conditions,” he said; in some iterations of Milgram’s study, the rate of compliance was close to 100 percent, while in others it was closer to zero. “We need an account that can explain the variability—when we obey, when we don’t.”

“We argue that the answer to that question is a matter of identification,” he continued. “Do they identify more with the cause of science, and listen to the experimenter as a legitimate representative of science, or do they identify more with the learner as an ordinary person? … You’re torn between these different voices. Who do you listen to?”

The question, he conceded, applies as much to the study of Milgram today as it does to what went on in his lab. “Trying to get a consensus among academics is like herding cats,” Reicher said, but “if there is a consensus, it’s that we need a new explanation. I think nearly everybody accepts the fact that Milgram discovered a remarkable phenomenon, but he didn’t provide a very compelling explanation of that phenomenon.”

What he provided instead was a difficult and deeply uncomfortable set of questions—and his research, flawed as it is, endures not because it clarifies the causes of human atrocities, but because it confuses more than it answers.

Or, as Miller put it: “The whole thing exists in terms of its controversy, how it’s excited some and infuriated others. People have tried to knock it down, and it always comes up standing.”

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Main, P (2023, May 03). The Stanley Milgram Experiment: Understanding Obedience. Retrieved from https://www.structural-learning.com/post/stanley-milgram-experiment

What was the Stanley Milgram experiment?

The Stanley Milgram experiment is one of the most famous and controversial studies in the history of psychology. The study was conducted in the early 1960s, and it examined people's willingness to obey an authority figure , even when that obedience caused harm to others. In this article, we'll take a closer look at the Milgram experiment, its significance, and its impact on psychology.

The Milgram experiment was designed to test people's willingness to obey authority, even when that obedience caused harm to others. The study involved three participants: the experimenter, the learner, and the teacher. The learner was actually a confederate of the experimenter, and the teacher was the real participant.

The teacher was instructed to administer electric shocks to the learner whenever the learner gave a wrong answer to a question. The shocks started at a low level and increased in intensity with each wrong answer. The learner was not actually receiving shocks, but they pretended to be in pain and begged the teacher to stop. Despite this, the experimenter instructed the teacher to continue shocking the learner.

The results of the Milgram experiment were shocking. Despite the learner's protests, the majority of participants continued to administer shocks to the maximum level, even when they believed that the shocks were causing serious harm.

The Milgram experiment is perhaps one of the most well-known experiments on obedience in psychology . Milgram's original study involved 40 participants who were instructed to deliver electric shocks to a confederate, who pretended to be receiving shocks.

The shocks were delivered via a "shock machine" and ranged in severity from slight shocks to severe shocks. Despite the confederate's cries of pain and protest, the majority of participants continued to administer shocks up to the maximum level, demonstrating high rates of obedience to authority figures.

Milgram's experiments on obedience generated a great deal of interest and controversy in the scientific community. The results of his study challenged commonly held beliefs about human behavior and the limits of individual autonomy . The study also raised important ethical concerns and spurred a renewed focus on informed consent and debriefing in behavioral research.

In subsequent variations of the experiment, Milgram sought to explore the factors that influenced obedience rates, such as the presence of peers or the proximity of the authority figure. These variations provided further insight into the complex nature of obedience and social influence .

The Milgram experiment remains a significant and influential study in the field of social psychology, providing valuable insights into the power of authority and the limits of individual autonomy. Despite its ethical concerns, Milgram's study continues to be discussed and debated by scholars and students alike, highlighting the enduring impact of this groundbreaking behavioral study.

Who was Stanley Milgram?

Stanley Milgram was a renowned American social psychologist who was born in New York City in 1933. He received his PhD in Social Psychology from Harvard University in 1960 and went on to teach at Yale University, where he conducted his famous obedience experiments. Milgram's research focused on the areas of personality and social psychology, and he is best known for his studies on obedience to authority figures.

Milgram's obedience experiments were controversial and sparked a great deal of debate in the field of psychology. His research showed that ordinary people were capable of inflicting harm on others when instructed to do so by an authority figure. Milgram's work had a profound impact on the field of social psychology and influenced other researchers, such as Philip Zimbardo , to study similar topics.

Milgram's contributions to the field of social psychology were significant, and his obedience experiments remain some of the most well-known and widely discussed studies in the history of psychology. Despite the controversy surrounding his work, Milgram's research continues to be taught in psychology courses around the world and has had a lasting impact on our understanding of obedience, authority, and human behavior.

Milgram's Independent Variables

As we have seen, in Stanley Milgram's famous experiment conducted at Yale University in the 1960s, he sought to investigate the extent to which ordinary people would obey the commands of an authority figure, even if it meant administering severe electric shocks to another person.

The study of obedience to authority figures was a fundamental aspect of Milgram's research in social psychology. To explore this phenomenon, Milgram manipulated several independent variables in his experiment. One key independent variable was the level of shock administered by the participants, ranging from slight shocks to increasingly severe shocks, labeled with corresponding shock levels.

Another independent variable was the proximity of the authority figure, with variations of physical proximity or remote instruction via telephone.

Additionally, the presence or absence of social pressure from others and the authority figure's attire, varying between a lab coat and everyday clothing, were also manipulated.

Through these carefully controlled independent variables, Milgram examined the obedience rates and the level of obedience demonstrated by the participants in response to the concrete situation created in his experiment.

Change of Location

One significant factor that influenced the results of the Milgram experiment was the change of location. Originally conducted at Yale University, the experiment was later moved to a set of run-down offices in Bridgeport, Connecticut. This change had a profound impact on the rates of obedience observed in the study.

In the original experiment at Yale University, the obedience rates were shockingly high, with approximately 65% of participants following the instructions of the authority figure to administer what they believed to be increasingly severe electric shocks to another person. However, when the experiment was relocated to the less prestigious and less authoritative setting of run-down offices, the obedience rates dropped significantly to 47.5%.

This change in location created a shift in the dynamic of the experiment . Participants were less likely to view the authority figure as credible or legitimate in the less prestigious environment. The environment in run-down offices appeared less official and therefore may have weakened the perceived authority of the experimenter. This resulted in a lower level of obedience observed among the participants.

The change in location in the Milgram experiment demonstrated the influence of contextual factors on obedience rates. It highlighted how obedience to authority figures can be influenced by the specific setting in which individuals find themselves. The study serves as a reminder that obedience is not solely determined by individual characteristics but is also shaped by situational factors such as the environment and perceived authority.

In conclusion, the change of location from Yale University to run-down offices had a significant impact on the obedience rates in the Milgram experiment. The move resulted in a drop in obedience, suggesting that the context in which the experiment took place influenced participants' responses to authority .

One important aspect of Stanley Milgram's obedience experiment was the role of the experimenter's uniform, specifically the lab coat. The uniform or attire worn by the authority figure in the experiment played a significant role in influencing obedience levels among the participants.

The lab coat served as a symbol of authority and expertise, creating a sense of credibility and legitimacy for the experimenter. By wearing the lab coat, the authority figure appeared more knowledgeable and trustworthy, which influenced participants to follow their instructions more readily.

The uniform also helped establish a clear power dynamic between the authority figure and the participants. The experimenter's attire reinforced the perception of being in a formal and professional setting, where obedience to authority was expected.

Milgram's experiment included variations to the uniform to examine its impact on obedience levels. In some versions of the experiment, the experimenter wore regular clothing instead of the lab coat. This modification significantly reduced the perceived authority of the experimenter, leading to lower levels of obedience among the participants.

By manipulating the presence or absence of the lab coat, Milgram demonstrated how even a simple change in attire could influence obedience levels . This emphasized the role of external factors, such as the uniform, in shaping human behavior in a social context.

Touch Proximity Condition

In the Touch Proximity Condition of the Milgram experiment, participants were subjected to a unique and intense situation that aimed to test the limits of their obedience to authority. In this particular condition, when the learner refused to participate after reaching 150 volts, the participants were required to physically force the learner's hand onto a shock plate. This manipulation was intended to eliminate the psychological buffer that existed between the participants and the consequences of their actions.

The introduction of touch proximity significantly altered the dynamics of the experiment. The physical act of forcing the learner's hand onto the shock plate made the participants more directly responsible for the pain and discomfort experienced by the learner. This direct physical connection to the consequences of their actions created a profound impact on the participants, leading to a notable decrease in obedience levels.

In the Touch Proximity Condition, obedience rates dropped to just 30%, highlighting the significant influence of the removal of the buffer between the participants and the consequences of their actions. The participants were confronted with the immediate and tangible effects of their obedience, which made it much more difficult to justify their continued compliance.

Overall, the Touch Proximity Condition revealed the critical role that the removal of psychological distance plays in obedience to authority. By eliminating the buffer between the participants and the consequences of their actions, Milgram's experiment demonstrated the tremendous impact that immediate physical proximity can have on individuals' behavior in a difficult and morally challenging situation.

Two Teacher Condition

In Milgram's Two Teacher Condition, participants were given the opportunity to instruct an assistant, who was actually a confederate, to press the switches administering electric shocks to the learner. This variation aimed to investigate the impact of participants assuming a more indirect role in the act of shocking the learner.

Surprisingly, the results showed that in this condition, a staggering 92.5% of participants instructed the assistant to deliver the maximum voltage shock. This high rate of obedience indicated that participants were willing to exert their authority over the assistant to carry out the harmful actions.

The Two Teacher Condition aligns with Milgram's Agency Theory, which suggests that people tend to obey authority figures when they perceive themselves as agents carrying out instructions rather than personally responsible. In this variation, participants may have seen themselves as simply giving orders rather than directly causing harm, which diminished their sense of personal responsibility and increased their obedience.

This condition demonstrates how the dynamic of obedience can change when individuals are given the opportunity to delegate harmful actions to others. It sheds light on the complex interplay between authority figures, personal responsibility, and obedience to explain the unexpected and alarming levels of compliance observed in the Milgram experiment.

Social Support Condition

In the Social Support Condition of Stanley Milgram's experiment, participants were not alone in their decision-making process. They were joined by two additional individuals who acted as confederates. The purpose of this condition was to assess the impact of social support on obedience.

The presence of these confederates who refused to obey the authority figure had a significant effect on the level of obedience observed. When one or both confederates refused to carry out the harmful actions, participants became more likely to question the legitimacy of the authority figure's commands and were less willing to comply.

The specific actions taken by the two confederates involved expressing their refusal to deliver the electric shocks. They openly dissented and voiced their concerns regarding the ethical implications of the experiment. These actions served as powerful examples of disobedience and created an atmosphere of social support for the participants.

As a result, the level of obedience decreased in the presence of these defiant confederates. Seeing others defy the authority figure empowered participants to assert their own autonomy and resist carrying out the harmful actions. The social support provided by the confederates challenged the participants' perception of the experiment as a concrete situation and encouraged them to question the legitimacy of the authority figure's instructions.

Overall, the Social Support Condition demonstrated that the presence of individuals who refused to obey had a profound influence on the level of obedience observed. This highlights the importance of social support in challenging authority and promoting ethical decision-making.

Absent Experimenter Condition

In Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiment, the proximity of authority figures played a crucial role in determining the level of obedience observed. One particular condition, known as the Absent Experimenter Condition, shed light on the impact of physical proximity on obedience.

In this condition, the experimenter instructed the teacher, who administered the electric shocks, by telephone from another room. The results were striking. Obedience plummeted to a mere 20.5%, indicating that when the authority figure was not physically present, participants were much less inclined to obey.

Without the immediate presence of the experimenter, many participants displayed disobedience or cheated by administering lesser shocks than instructed. This deviation from the experimenter's orders suggests that the absence of the authority figure weakened the participants' sense of obligation and decreased their willingness to comply.

The findings of the Absent Experimenter Condition highlight the significant influence of proximity on obedience. When the authority figure was physically present, participants were more likely to obey, even when faced with morally challenging actions. However, when the authority figure was not in close proximity, obedience rates dramatically decreased. This emphasizes the impact of physical distance on individuals' inclination to follow orders, indicating that proximity plays a crucial role in shaping obedience behavior.

Milgram's Absent Experimenter Condition underscored the importance of physical proximity with authority figures in determining obedience levels. When the experimenter instructed the teacher by telephone from another room, obedience fell to 20.5%, revealing the diminished compliance when the authority figure was not physically present.

Milgram's Legacy and Influence on Modern Psychology

The Milgram experiment was significant for a number of reasons. Firstly, it highlighted the power of obedience to authority, even in situations where that obedience causes harm to others. This has important implications for understanding real-world situations, such as the Holocaust, where ordinary people were able to commit atrocities under the authority of a fascist regime.

Secondly, the experiment sparked a debate about the ethics of psychological research . Some critics argued that the study was unethical because it caused psychological distress to the participants. Others argued that the study's findings were too important to ignore, and that the benefits of the research outweighed the harm caused.

Stanley Milgram's study of obedience is widely recognized as one of the most influential experiments in the history of psychology. Although Milgram faced significant criticism for the ethical implications of his work, the study has had a lasting impact on our understanding of the power of authority and social influence.

Milgram's legacy can be seen in a variety of ways within the field of personality and social psychology. For example, his research has inspired a multitude of studies on the impact of social norms and conformity on behavior, as well as the importance of individual autonomy and free will in decision-making processes.

In addition, Milgram's influence can be seen in modern psychological research that utilizes variations of his study to explore new questions related to social influence and obedience. One such example is the Milgram Re-enactment, which sought to replicate the original study in a more ethical and controlled manner. This variation of the study found that individuals were still willing to administer shocks to the confederate, albeit at lower levels than in Milgram's original study.

Milgram's work has also had a significant impact on the way that researchers approach the treatment of participants in psychological experiments. The ethical concerns raised by Milgram's study led to a renewed focus on informed consent and debriefing procedures, ensuring that participants are aware of the potential risks and benefits of their involvement in research studies.

Milgram's legacy is one of both controversy and innovation. His study of obedience has contributed greatly to our understanding of human behavior and has served as a catalyst for important ethical discussions within the scientific community . While his work may continue to generate debate, there is no doubt that Milgram's contributions to the field of psychology have had a profound and lasting impact.

Milgram's Relationship with Other Prominent Psychologists

Stanley Milgram was a highly influential figure in the field of social psychology, and his work has been cited by a number of other prominent psychologists throughout the years. One of his contemporaries, Albert Bandura, was also interested in the power of social influence and developed the theory of social learning , which explored the ways in which people learn from one another and their environments.

Gordon Allport was another important figure in the field of social psychology, known for his work on personality and prejudice. Allport's research was highly influential in shaping Milgram's own understanding of social influence and obedience.

Milgram's infamous obedience studies demonstrated how individuals could be led to obey authority figures and commit acts that violated their own moral codes. Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment similarly showed how individuals could adopt new identities and exhibit aggressive and abusive behavior when placed in positions of power. Both studies highlight the importance of social context in shaping behavior and have had a significant impact on our understanding of the role of situational factors in human behavior.

Jerome Bruner, another influential psychologist , was known for his work on cognitive psychology and the importance of active learning in education. Although Bruner's work was not directly related to Milgram's study of obedience, his emphasis on the importance of individual autonomy and active learning aligns with some of the key themes in Milgram's work.

Roger Brown, a psychologist known for his research on language and cognitive developmen t, also shared some common ground with Milgram in terms of their interest in human behavior and social influence. Finally, Solomon Asch , another prominent psychologist, conducted important research on conformity that helped to lay the groundwork for Milgram's own study of obedience.

Milgram's work was highly influential and contributed significantly to the field of social psychology. His relationship with other prominent psychologists reflects the collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of psychological research and highlights the ways in which researchers build upon one another's work over time.

Criticisms of the Milgram Experiment

Despite its significance, the Milgram experiment has been heavily criticized by some psychologists. One of the main criticisms is that the study lacked ecological validity - that is, it didn't accurately reflect real-world situations. Critics argue that participants in the study knew that they were taking part in an experiment, and that this affected their behavior.

Another criticism is that the experiment caused psychological distress to the participants. Some argue that the experimenter put too much pressure on the participants to continue administering shocks, and that this caused lasting psychological harm.

The Impact of Milgram's Research on Social Psychology

The Milgram experiment, conducted at Yale University in 1961, shocked the world with its findings on obedience to authority. Despite its groundbreaking contribution to the field of personality and social psychology, the study has also faced significant criticism for its treatment of participants.

Critics have raised concerns about the potential psychological harm inflicted on participants, who were led to believe that they were administering painful electric shocks to a real victim. Nevertheless, the Milgram experiment remains a critical turning point in the history of experiments with people.

It has had a profound impact on psychology, inspiring numerous studies that continue to shed light on obedience, conformity, and group dynamics. It has also sparked important debates about the ethics of psychological research and raised awareness of the importance of protecting the rights and well-being of research participants .

Real-Life Examples of Obedience Leading to Human Catastrophe

Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments have had profound implications for understanding human behavior, especially in contexts where obedience to authority might have contributed to catastrophic outcomes. Here are seven historical examples that resonate with Milgram's findings:

• Nazi Germany : The obedience to authority during the Holocaust, where individuals followed orders to commit atrocities, can be understood through Milgram's experiments. The willingness to administer "lethal shocks" to human subjects reflects how ordinary people can commit heinous acts under authoritative pressure.
• My Lai Massacre : American soldiers massacred hundreds of Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War. Milgram's work helps explain how soldiers obeyed orders despite the moral implications, emphasizing the power of authority in a difficult situation.
• Rwandan Genocide : The obedience to ethnic propaganda and authority figures led to the mass killings in Rwanda. Milgram's experiments shed light on how obedience can override personal judgment, leading to an unexpected outcome.
• Jonestown Massacre : Followers of Jim Jones obeyed his orders to commit mass suicide. Milgram's findings on obedience help explain how charismatic leaders can exert control over their followers, even to the point of death.
• Chernobyl Disaster : The obedience to flawed protocols and disregard for safety by the plant operators contributed to the catastrophe. Milgram's work illustrates how obedience to procedures and hierarchy can lead to disaster.
• Iraq War - Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse : The abuse of prisoners by U.S. military personnel can be linked to obedience to authority, a phenomenon explored in Milgram's experiments. The willingness to inflict harm under orders reflects the human participants' compliance in his studies.
• Financial Crisis of 2008 : Blind obedience to corporate culture and regulatory authorities contributed to unethical practices leading to the global financial meltdown. Milgram's insights into obedience help explain how organizational pressures can lead to widespread harm.

These examples demonstrate the pervasive influence of obedience in various historical and contemporary contexts. Milgram's experiments, documented in various Stanley Milgram Papers and the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , continue to be a critical reference in understanding human behavior.

The documentary film "Shocking Obedience" further explores these themes, emphasizing the universal relevance of Milgram's work. His experiments remind us of the human capacity for obedience , even in the face of morally reprehensible orders, and continue to provoke reflection on our own susceptibilities.

Key Takeaways

• The Milgram experiment was a famous and controversial study in psychology that examined people's willingness to obey authority.
• Participants in the study were instructed to administer electric shocks to a learner, even when that obedience caused harm to the learner.
• The results of the study showed that the majority of participants continued to administer shocks to the maximum level, even when they believed that the shocks were causing serious harm.
• The study has been heavily criticized for lacking ecological validity and causing psychological distress to participants.
• Despite the criticisms, the Milgram experiment has had a lasting impact on psychology and has inspired numerous other studies on obedience and authority.

In conclusion, the Milgram experiment remains an important and controversial study in the field of psychology. Its findings continue to influence our understanding of obedience to authority.

Further Reading on the Milgram Experiment

These papers offer a comprehensive view of Milgram's experiment and its implications, highlighting the profound effects of authority on human behaviour.

1. Stanley Milgram and the Obedience Experiment by C. Helm, M. Morelli (1979)

This paper delves into Milgram's experimen t, revealing the significant control the state has over individuals, as evidenced by their willingness to administer painful shocks to an innocent victim.

2. Credibility and Incredulity in Milgram’s Obedience Experiments: A Reanalysis of an Unpublished Test by G. Perry, A. Brannigan, R. Wanner, H. Stam (2019)

This study reanalyzes an unpublished test from Milgram's experiment , suggesting that participants' belief in the pain being inflicted influenced their level of obedience.

3. The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram by R. Persaud (2005)

Persaud's paper discusses the profound impact of Milgram's experiments on our understanding of human behavior , particularly the willingness of people to follow scientific authority.

4. Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today? by J. Burger (2009)

Burger's study replicates Milgram's Experiment 5 , finding slightly lower obedience rates than 45 years earlier, with gender showing no significant influence on obedience.

5. Personality predicts obedience in a Milgram paradigm. by L. Bègue, J. Beauvois, D. Courbet, Dominique Oberlé, J. Lepage, Aaron A. Duke (2015)

This research explores how personality traits like conscientiousness and agreeableness, along with political orientation and social activism, can predict obedience in Milgram-like experiments.

These papers offer a comprehensive view of Milgram's experiment and its implications, highlighting the profound effects of authority on human behavior .

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Milgram Experiment

The Milgram Experiment: Understanding Obedience to Authority

The Milgram Experiment, conducted by social psychologist Stanley Milgram in the early 1960s, remains one of the most controversial and influential studies in the history of psychology. This groundbreaking experiment aimed to investigate the extent to which individuals would comply with authority figures, even when their actions conflicted with their personal conscience.

Milgram’s basic premise was that “the person who, with inner conviction, loathes stealing, killing, and assault may find himself performing these acts with relative ease when commanded by authority. Behavior that is unthinkable in an individual who is acting on his own may be executed without hesitation when carried out under orders” ( Milgram, 1974 ).

Key Definition:

Stanley Milgram’s experiments were a series of controversial psychological studies conducted in the 1960s at Yale University. The most well-known of these experiments involved participants being instructed to administer what they believed to be increasingly painful electric shocks to another person, who was actually an actor and not receiving any shocks. The study aimed to investigate the willingness of participants to obey authority figures, even when their actions caused harm to others.

Society, Rules, and Obedience

Milgram explains that “obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose. It is the dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority” ( Milgram, 1974 ). Humans need each other. Human societies provides tremendous benefits to the members. Rules, and obedience to the the rules, are necessary ingredients for the smooth functioning of the group. Governments, families, and employers all create rule based expectations, along with punishments for violations.

While obedience is often a virtue, it can also be manipulated. Unscrupulous groups and leaders use blind obedience to serve unethical and diabolical purposes. We may refer to following the dictates of these leaders as destructive obedience.

Background and Methodology

Stanley Milgram designed the experiment in response to the widely debated question of whether the atrocities of the Holocaust could be attributed to a distinct characteristic of the German national character. The study first of several experiments in this series was conducted at Yale University and involved participants who were led to believe that they were taking part in a memory and learning experiment. Milgram conducted 24 variations of this experiment in total.

The unsuspecting participants were assigned the role of “teacher” and instructed to administer increasingly severe electric shocks to a “learner” whenever they made a mistake in a word-pairing task. Unbeknownst to the “teacher,” the “learner” was an actor who did not actually receive any electric shocks. This setup was intended to investigate the “teacher’s” willingness to obey the instructions of the experimenter, despite the apparent distress exhibited by the “learner.”

Commands from Authority Figure

When a teacher was hesitant to administer stronger shocks to the learner the experimenter prodded the teacher with specific orders.

The prods were, in this order:

• Please continue or Please go on.
• The experiment requires that you continue.
• It is absolutely essential that you continue.
• You have no other choice; you must go on ( Milgram, 1963 )

The Level Progressive Level of Shocks

The seven levels of shocks progressively administered were:

• Slight Shock
• Moderate Shock
• Strong Shock
• Very Strong Shock
• Intense Shock
• Extreme Intensity Shock
• Danger: Severe Shock ( Milgram, 1963 )

Milgram predicted that most US citizens would break off early from the experiment, refusing to administer stronger shocks. However, the results proved different. “In the repeated trial of the baseline experiment, about 65% of people obeyed all the way to the punitively fatal end” ( Badhwar, 2009 ).

Results and Implications

The results of the Milgram Experiment were startling, as a significant majority of participants were willing to administer the highest level of electric shocks to the “learner” when instructed to do so by the authority figure. Many participants displayed extreme discomfort and distress during the experiment, yet they continued to follow the orders given to them.

Based on his research, Milgram stated that “if a system of death camps were set up in the US of the sorts we had seen in Nazi Germany one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town” ( Sapolski, 2018. Kindle location: 7,343 ). We proudly defend that this could never happen her. Yet, with supporting provocation from an unscrupulous leader, a group of violent protesters marched on our nation’s capital ready to kill.

Robyn Dawes wrote, “the implication of Milgram’s experiments and others that followed is that ‘authoritarianism’ is not such an unusual phenomenon. Perfectly normal people have a tendency to accept authority—even to the point of inflicting pain and possible harm on others, or at least believing they are. In fact, so strong is this tendency that we do not make compelling demands on authorities to prove that they are indeed authorities” ( Dawes, 1996. p. 202 ).

Inner Tension

Erich Fromm wrote that social scientists discovered two findings from Milgram’s experiments. “The first finding concerns the sheer strength of obedient tendencies manifested in this situation.” He explains that “subjects have learned from childhood that it is a fundamental breach of moral conduct to hurt another person against his will. Yet, 26 students abandon this tenet in following the instructions of an authority who has no special powers to enforce his commands.”

Fromm continues, “the second unanticipated effect was the extraordinary tension generated by the procedures. One might suppose that a subject would simply break off or continue as his conscience dictated. Yet, this is very far from what happened” ( Fromm, 2013. Kindle location: 1,128) . Obedience to authority when that obedience conflicts with inner tenants of behavior creates tension that we must resolve.

These findings raised profound ethical concerns and sparked important discussions about the power of authority. Also of importance, the experiments bring attention to the influence of situational factors on behavior. Accordingly, we see the potential for ordinary individuals to commit acts that violate their moral principles when ordered to do so by an authority figure.

Moral Justification

As Milgram proclaimed, “the person who, with inner conviction, loathes stealing, killing, and assault may find himself performing these acts with relative ease when commanded by authority.” And thus, ordinary citizens act in extraordinary and violent ways, self-righteously violating self proclaimed values and ordinary human ethics to gladly march in obedience to an authority figure.

According to Albert Bandura we internalize laws that regulate our behavior through self sanctions. However, when our behaviors violate these self sanctions, shunning the internalized ethical laws, we justify .

According to moral disengagement theory , moral justification refers to the process of framing harmful actions or behaviors in a way that makes them seem morally acceptable or justified. In many instances, it appears that obedience to authority supersedes internalized ethics. However, we then must address the cognitive dissonance of conflicting morals and behaviors. We do this through a number of defensive strategies .

Legacy and Ethical Considerations

Peter K. Lunt wrote, “Milgram is perhaps the best-known social psychologist outside the discipline and he and his experiments are a fantastic ambassador, bringing the issues and concerns of the relation between the individual and the social world to a wide audience” ( Lunt, 2009, p. 111 ).

Despite its immense impact on the field of psychology and popular understanding, the Milgram Experiment has also faced criticism regarding its ethical implications and the potential stress imposed on the participants. Milgram dismissed the stress the experiment caused on the subjects, justifying it brought helpful personal insights about their willingness to obey authorities. Diana Baumrind described this process of gaining self-knowledge as ‘inflicted insight'” ( Herrera, 2001 ).

Nevertheless, it has significantly contributed to our understanding of obedience, conformity, and the complex interactions between individuals and authority figures. The readers of Milgram’s experiments benefit without the harm. However, how do we measure harm to some that benefits others. Can we sacrifice the good of the few for the benefit of the many when the few had no choice in the matter other than willingness to participate in a social experiment at a laboratory at Yale?

A Few Words by Psychology Fanatic

In conclusion, the Milgram Experiment serves as a powerful reminder of the intricacies of human behavior and the critical importance of ethical considerations in psychological research. It continues to stimulate ongoing debates on the nature of obedience, moral decision-making, and the ethical boundaries of scientific inquiry.

Milgram’s experiments, like most experiments, has been subject to harsh criticism. Critics contend he manipulated numbers and tainted the experiments with his own bias. Perhaps, some of their criticism is justified. Personally, I’m not certain that any experiment in the a laboratory can be completely pristine, untainted by the environment. Accordingly, we must view the results with some skepticism. However, this does not dismiss all his findings. We still can learn much from these social experiments, consider our own tendencies to destructively obey, and make some mindful changes.

Last Update: February 23, 2024

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References:

Badhwar, Neera ( 2009 ). The Milgram Experiments, Learned Helplessness, and Character Traits. The Journal of Ethics, 13(3), 257-289. DOI: 10.1007/s10892-009-9052-4

Dawes, Robyn ( 1996 ). House of Cards. Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth. Free Press; 1st edition.

Fromm, Erich ( 2013 ). The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. Open Road Media; 1st edition.

Herrera, C. ( 2001 ). Ethics, Deception, and ‘Those Milgram Experiments’. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 18(3). DOI: 10.1111/1468-5930.00192

Kumar Das, Krishanu ( 2020 ). Milgram’s Experiment: Obedience or Emotional Adaptation on Empathy Emotional Scale?. Social Sciences. DOI: 10.11648/j.ss.20200901.12

Lunt, Peter Kenneth ( 2009 ). Stanley Milgram: Understanding Obedience and its Implications. ‎Bloomsbury Academic; 1st edition.

Milgram, Stanley ( 1963 ). Behavioral Study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 67(4), 371-378. DOI: 10.1037/h0040525

Milgram, Stanley ( 2009 /1974). Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. ‎ Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Reprint edition.

Sapolski, Robert ( 2018 ). Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. Penguin Books; Illustrated edition.

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The Concept of Obedience in Psychology

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• Obedience vs. Conformity
• Milgram’s Experiments

Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment

Factors that impact obedience.

• Why It Is Important

Obedience is a form of social influence that involves acting on the orders of an authority figure. It often involves actions a person would not have taken unless they were directed to do so by someone of authority or influence.

To understand obedience, it is important to also understand how it differs from compliance and conformity . Compliance involves changing your behavior at the request of another person, while conformity consists in altering your behavior to go along with the rest of the group.

Obedience involves altering your behavior because an authority figure has told you to do so.

Obedience vs. Conformity: How They Differ

Obedience is an essential concept in psychology. The question of why people obey others, its impact on society, and the factors that impact obedience are essential in understanding social behavior and social influence.  However, obedience must be distinguished from other types of social influence, including conformity.

Obedience differs from conformity in three key ways:

• Obedience involves an order ; conformity involves a request.
• Obedience is obeying someone of a higher status ; conformity is going along with people of equal status.
• Obedience relies on social power ; conformity relies on the need to be socially accepted.

Where obedience relies on direct orders, the perceived status and power of the person giving those orders, conformity is more about fitting in with the group. People obey because they are commanded to, but conform because they want to gain approval from their peers.

Milgram’s Obedience Experiments

During the 1950s, psychologist Stanley Milgram became intrigued with the conformity experiments performed by Solomon Asch . Asch's work had demonstrated that people could easily be swayed to conform to group pressure, but Milgram wanted to see just how far people would be willing to go.

The trial of Adolf Eichmann, who had planned and managed the mass deportation of Jews during World War II, helped spark Milgram’s interest in obedience.

Throughout the trial, Eichmann suggested that he was simply following orders. He claimed that he felt no guilt for his role in the mass murders because he had only been doing what his superiors requested and he had played no role in the decision to exterminate the captives.

Milgram's Question

After the horrors of the Holocaust, some people, such as Eichmann, explained their participation in the atrocities by suggesting they were doing as they were commanded.

Milgram had set out to explore the question, "Are Germans different?" In other words, he wondered if perhaps there were some factors at work that had made German citizens obey orders more than others might. He soon discovered, however, that many people are surprisingly obedient to authority.

Milgram wanted to know—would people really harm another person if they were ordered to by an authority figure? Just how powerful is the pressure to obey?

Milgram's Results

Milgram’s studies involved placing participants in a room and directing them to deliver electrical shocks to a "learner" located in another room. Unbeknownst to the participant, the person supposedly receiving the shocks was actually in on the experiment and was merely acting out responses to imaginary shocks.

Surprisingly, Milgram found that 65% of participants were willing to deliver the maximum level of shocks on the experimenter's orders.

Recent Criticisms Cast Doubt on Milgram's Findings

Milgram's experiments have long been criticized as unethical, but more recent findings have further complicated the legacy of his research. After examining experimental archives, researchers found that participants in the famous study were often coerced into delivering shocks, which has significant implications for the study's final results.  

While 65% of the participants followed orders, it is essential to note that the statistics only apply to one study variation. In other trials, fewer people were willing to go through with the shocks, and in some cases, every participant refused to follow orders.

Modern Replications

Despite the problems with Milgram's original study, some researchers have been able to replicate his findings. In 2009, researchers partially replicated Milgram's study, but with a top shock of 150 volts. The study found that obedience rates were only slightly lower than those originally reported by Milgram.

Another 2017 replication conducted by researcher in Poland found that 90% of people were willing to go to the highest voltage level.

While Milgram's study had problems, subsequent research has suggested that people are surprisingly willing to obey orders.

Milgram’s controversial experiments generated a great deal of interest in the psychology of obedience. During the early 1970s, social psychologist Philip Zimbardo staged an exploration into the study of prisoners and prison life.

Zimbardo's Experiment

He set up a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford University psychology department and assigned his participants to play the roles of either prisoners or guards, with Zimbardo himself acting as the prison warden.

According to the researchers, the study had to be discontinued after a mere six days even though it was initially slated to last two weeks. Why did the researchers end the experiment so early? Because the participants had become so involved in their roles, the guards utilized authoritarian techniques to gain the obedience of the prisoners.

The study's authors suggested that the guards even subjected the prisoners to psychological abuse , harassment, and physical torture.

The results of the Stanford Prison Experiment are often used to demonstrate how easily people are influenced by characteristics of the roles and situations they are cast in, but Zimbardo also suggested that environmental factors play a role in how prone people are to obey authority.

Contemporary Criticisms

Like Milgram's experiments, Zimbardo's experiment has not fared well under more recent analysis. In addition to the long-noted ethical problems with the study, a more recent analysis of the study's methods has revealed serious issues with the experiment's design, methods, procedures, and authenticity.

Participants in the study reportedly faked their responses to leave early. Others reported amplifying their behaviors to help give the experimenters the results they were looking for. Critics suggest that the study lacks scientific merit and credibility due to these notable problems with its procedures.

A variety of individual and social factors can impact the likelihood that a person will obey a leader. Some factors that might play a role include:

• Personality characteristics : Certain personality traits, including conscientiousness and agreeableness , have been linked to greater obedience to authority.
• Psychological distance : You may be more likely to engage in obedience to authority if the effects of your obedience feel distant, abstract, or unconnected to your life.
• Ambiguity or lack of information : In ambiguous situations, a person may be more likely to obey someone who seems to have more information than they do.
• Fear of consequences : Obedience often happens because people fear the consequences of disobedience. Children often obey partners or teachers, for example, because they fear punishment or losing privileges if they disobey.

Understanding the Psychology of Obedience

Recognizing the power of obedience can help shed light on why people sometimes follow the orders of an authority figure, even if it violates their own personal beliefs or morals. Helping leaders understand their power in social situations can also help them use it more effectively and responsibly.

Building this understanding may also help people better recognize abuses of power and find ways to better promote responsible, ethical behavior.

Stangor C, Jhangiani R, Tarry H.  Principles of Social Psychology . Victoria: BC campus Open Textbook Project; 2014.

American Psychological Association. Obeying and resisting malevolent orders .

Milgram S.  Obedience to Authority: an Experimental View . New York: Harper & Row; 1974.

Perry G.  Deception and illusion in Milgram's accounts of the obedience experiments .  Theory Appl Ethics . 2013;2(2):79-92.

Burger JM. Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today ? Am Psychol . 2009;64(1):1-11. doi:10.1037/a0010932

Doliński D, Grzyb T, Folwarczny M, et al. Would you deliver an electric shock in 2015? Obedience in the experimental paradigm developed by Stanley Milgram in the 50 years following the original studies . Social Psychological and Personality Science . 2017;8(8):927-933. doi:10.1177/1948550617693060

American Psychological Association. Demonstrating the Power of Social Situations via a Simulated Prison Experiment.

Blum B.  The lifespan of a lie .  Medium .

Le Texier T.  Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment .  American Psychologist . 2019;74(7):823-839. doi:10.1037/amp0000401

Bègue L, Beauvois JL, Courbet D, Oberlé D, Lepage J, Duke AA. Personality predicts obedience in a Milgram paradigm .  J Pers . 2015;83(3):299-306. doi:10.1111/jopy.12104

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Stanley Milgram

In 1954 Harvard’s Department of Social Relations took the unusual step of admitting a bright young student who had not taken a single psychology course.  Fortunately Stanley Milgram was soon up to speed in social psychology, and in the course of his doctoral work at Harvard he conducted an innovative cross-cultural comparison of conformity in Norway and France under the guidance of Gordon Allport. 

Obtaining his Ph.D. in 1960, Milgram was ready to expand his work on conformity with a series of experiments on obedience to authority that he conducted as an assistant professor at Yale from 1960 to 1963. Inspired by Hannah Arendt’s report on the trial of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem, Milgram wondered whether her claims about “the banality of evil” – that evil acts can come from ordinary people following orders as they do their jobs – could be demonstrated in the lab. Milgram staged meticulously designed sham experiments in which subjects were ordered to administer dangerous shocks to fellow volunteers (in reality, the other volunteers were confederates and the shocks were fake). Contradicting the predictions of every expert he polled , Milgram found that more than seventy percent of the subjects administered what they thought might be fatal shocks to an innocent stranger. Collectively known as The Milgram Experiment, this groundbreaking work demonstrated the human tendency to obey commands issued by an authority figure, and more generally, the tendency for behavior to be controlled more by the demands of the situation than by idiosyncratic traits of the person.

The Milgram Experiment is one of the best-known social psychology studies of the 20th century. With this remarkable accomplishment under his belt, young Dr. Milgram returned to Harvard in 1963 to take a position as Assistant Professor of Social Psychology.

During this time at Harvard, Milgram undertook a new, equally innovative line of research, known as the Small World Experiment.  Milgram asked a sample of people to trace out a chain of personal connections to a designated stranger living thousands of miles away. His finding that most people could do this successfully with a chain of six or fewer links yielded the familiar expression “Six Degrees of Separation,” which later became the name of a play and a movie,  a source for the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” and a major theme of Malcolm Gladwell’s 2000 bestseller,  The Tipping Point . The internet has made it easier to study social networks, and several decades after its discovery, the phenomenon has become a subject of intense new research.

Stanley Milgram left Harvard in 1967 to return to his hometown, New York City, accepting a position as head of the social psychology program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  Tragically, he died of a heart attack at the age of 51. Milgram is listed as number 46 on the American Psychological Association’s list of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century.

Blass, T. (2002).  The man who shocked the world.  Psychology Today, Mar/Apr2002, 35(2), p. 68.

Eminent psychologists of the 20th century.  (July/August, 2002). Monitor on Psychology, 33(7), p.29.

Milgram, S. (1977).  The individual in a social world.  Reading, MA:  Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.

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New study changes the way we understand the psychology of obedience

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A new study just published in the journal PLoS One – involving a landmark international collaboration between psychologists and computer scientists at the University of St Andrews, University of Barcelona, University of Queensland and University College London – challenges the traditional understanding of why people obey orders.

Milgram’s classic ‘obedience’ studies show that people will obey instructions from an experimenter to inflict electric shocks on a ‘learner’ when he makes errors on a memory task. Milgram argues that this is because they are so focussed on doing what is asked of them that they are hardly aware of the consequences of their actions.

But the new study, using a virtual reality replication of the originals, shows that people are well aware of the learner and that they actively seek to help him avoid shocks by emphasising the correct answers to the memory task. Nonetheless, if errors are still made, they continue to obey instructions to the extent that – as other work by the research team has shown – they ultimately consider the benefits of the research to outweigh the suffering of the victim.

Professor Stephen Reicher, of the School of Psychology at St Andrews, said: “It’s not that people harm others because they aren’t aware or don’t care. In some ways, the reality is even more disturbing: we can harm others despite caring about them because we think it is justified in furtherance of a worthier cause.”

Dr Megan Birney, who helped design the studies at St Andrews and has since moved to the University of Chester at University Centre Shrewsbury, added: “It’s the old argument about serving ‘the greater good’ – a truly toxic idea.”

Dr Mar Gonzalez-Franco, now of Microsoft Research – who conducted the research in the University College London Virtual Reality ‘Cave’ – explained the importance of the work from a computer science perspective. She said: “This work is an example of how virtual reality helps us to understand difficult and important topics that otherwise would be very hard to research in an ethical way.”

Professor Mel Slater of the University of Barcelona said: “The study is part of our wider programme of work showing that, even though people know they are in a virtual reality simulation, they tend to behave much as they would in similar circumstances in reality. Hence VR offers huge opportunities for psychological and other social science research.”

Dr Megan Birney, currently a social psychologist at the University of Chester at University Centre Shrewsbury, said: “For many years, people had doubts about Milgram’s claim that people obey the most harmful instructions simply because they don’t attend to the consequences of their actions, but it was hard to do studies to refute it. This virtual reality study, part of a larger Economic and Social Research Council project on obedience, finally allows us to lay this argument to rest.”

‘ Participant concerns for the Learner in a Virtual Reality replication of the Milgram obedience study ’ is published in PLoS One on 31 December 2018 and available online .

Please ensure the paper's DOI ( doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209704 ) is included in online news stories and social media posts and that PLoS One is credited as the source.

The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram.

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