Stanley Milgram

Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiments

Stanley Milgram started his academic career studying political science at Queens College in New York. He then went on to complete his graduate studies at Harvard University. While at Harvard, he had the opportunity to study with world-renowned social psychologists including Gordon Allport and Solomon Asch. Milgram was especially influenced by Asch's experiments on conformity and how group behavior can influence individual behavior.

What really sparked his interest was the trial of Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann, along with several other criminals facing trial for their inhumane treatment of Jews during the Holocaust, claimed that he was simply "following orders". After accepting a position at Yale University, Milgram was able to explore this question by conducting an experiment. Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments aimed to uncover why ordinary people, such as Eichmann, are willing to obey orders from authority, even when it means harming another.

Stanley Milgram Obedience Experiment: Procedure

Milgram recruited the participants for the study by creating a newspaper ad stating a need for adult male participants in a research experiment. All participants were from New Haven, Connecticut, and came from a range of economic backgrounds. Each participant was offered compensation for their time.

Nazi Germany, Commons.Wikimedia.org

There were two groups in this experiment -- the teacher and the learner. Straws were picked to determine who would be the teacher and who would be the learner. However, unknown to the participants, Milgram ensured that his confederates were always chosen as learners.

The learner was asked to remember several words or phrases. If they got the answer incorrect, the teacher is required to press a button that, or so they were told, would emit an electric shock. Each time, the shock would increase by 15 volts and up to 450 volts, enough to cause significant harm and even death to a person. Of course, since the learners were Milgram's confederates, they would purposefully give the wrong answer but would not actually receive the electric shock. However, the teachers (participants) did not know this.

If the teacher showed hesitation or stated that they no longer wanted to continue, the researcher would give a series of orders or prods (Milgram, 1965).

Prod 1 - Please continue.

Prod 2 - The experiment requires you to continue.

Prod 3 - It is absolutely essential that you continue.

Prod 4 - You have no other choice but to continue.

Would these orders from "authority" influence the participant's likelihood to obey? Continue reading for the shocking results...

Stanley Milgram Experiment Conclusion

Two-thirds, that's 65% of the participants, gave a shock all the way up to 450 volts, and all of them went up to 300 volts. The learners (remember, they were never actually given a shock) would pretend to be in pain, pleading for them to stop, and sometimes even complain of severe chest pain. Only 35% of the participants chose to go against the researcher's orders and refuse to continue.

Obedience to authority clearly played a role in this experiment. However, several other factors affected the likelihood that the participant would obey and choose to cause harm to another. To uncover this, Milgram conducted several different versions of this experiment.

Electric chair, Commons.Wikimedia.org

Based on these findings, we can make several conclusions about what factors affect a person's likelihood to obey an authority figure, even if it goes against their beliefs. For example, it would appear that being physically closer to an authority figure may affect whether or not a person obeys orders. It's a lot easier to say no over the phone than in person. Or being physically closer to the person you may harm may make it more difficult to carry out orders.

Stanley Milgram's Theory

To explain these findings, Stanley Milgram's theory, also known as Milgram's Agency Theory, was formed. This theory presents two possible states a person may be in in a social situation involving authority. Those two states are the autonomous state and the agentic state.

According to Milgram, the agentic state is the state a person must be in for them to obey authority, even when it means harming someone else or going against one's beliefs. Milgram's Agency Theory states that we must believe two things about the person in authority:

1. They are qualified to order others around.

2. They will take responsibility for whatever happens.

Stanley Milgram Experiment's Ethical Issues

This was a monumental experiment in the field of social psychology. However, this Stanley Milgram experiment's ethical issues should not be ignored. One of the biggest issues in this experiment was the element of deception. The participants did not know that the electric shock was fake. Many of them were extremely distressed -- stuttering, sweating, crying, and some even had seizures due to the stress. Milgram debriefed the participants after the experiment by explaining that no one was actually harmed. This did help to reduce the participant's distress, however, some question if putting them through that experience at all is acceptable.

Another ethical issue with Stanley Milgram's obedience experiment is that it was never clearly communicated to the participants that they had the right to withdraw. Many felt that since they took money for participating, they couldn't back out. They could always choose not to participate (35% did), but the researchers never presented that as an option. Some question if this skewed the results but Milgram felt that it would interfere with creating a sense of authority between the researcher and the participants.

Stanley Milgram's Contribution to Psychology

Milgram's experiments on obedience provided strong evidence that under certain situations, any one of us could abandon our beliefs and morals to follow orders from a person we deem as having authority over us. If we feel we can place the responsibility on someone else, we may be capable of things we never imagined.

It is important to note, however, that while Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments had shocking results, some researchers took issue with how the participants were selected. In a way, the participants chose themselves to participate (rather than through random sampling) because they responded to a newspaper ad. This drew people who were willing to volunteer and, most notably, it only drew adult men. The ad did not advertise for women or children. Are the results the same for them too?

Person in authority, Freepik.com

Luckily, news of Milgram's experiments through his written work, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (1974) had a major influence on several other researchers who expanded Milgram's findings to include more than adult males from New Haven. Research on obedience is applicable in other fields of psychology as well such as forensic psychology.

Should people be punished the same for crimes that are committed because they feel they have to follow orders from a person in authority? Forensic psychologists explore these questions and are often asked to provide their professional opinion in court.

His experiments on obedience were only part of Stanley Milgram's contribution to psychology. He eventually left Yale to join Harvard's faculty but after not achieving tenure, he accepted a position at the City University of New York (CUNY). At CUNY, he conducted other experiments on social relations.