Key Study

Milgram (1963)

Obedience to Authority

Aims

The aim of Milgram’s study was originally to test the hypothesis that ‘Germans are different’. Milgram wanted to show that destructive obedience could be a problem in all societies and that the atrocities committed by the Nazi’s during the war were not the result of an innate character defect solely in the German people: a readiness to obey without question.

Procedures

Partcipants were volunteers who had answered an ads in a local newspaper and direct mail. In the basic procedure, the experimenter (E) orders the subject/teacher (S) to give what the subject believes are painful electric shocks to another subject/victim (A), who is actually an actor. Participants are ordered to keep increasing the level of shocks despite pleas for mercy from the actor, as long as the experimenter kept on ordering them to do so.

Findings

Milgram’s results can be presented in various ways. For example, every teacher went up to 300 volts; over 60% went ‘all the way’ (to 450 volts). Milgram also describes the reactions of participants: many showed signs of extreme stress.

Conclusions

The Milgram study appeared to provide scientific evidence that over 60% of participants brought to a laboratory, would administer extremely dangerous shocks to a protesting victim because they had been ordered to by an experimenter! There have been several replications of the study in other countries and, although there is some cultural variation the general point is that, in all countries, the rates of obedience are far higher than would be expected or predicted even by psychiatrists.

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