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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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• Ph.D., Psychology, University of California - Santa Barbara
• B.A., Psychology and Peace & Conflict Studies, University of California - Berkeley

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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How Would People Behave in Milgram’s Experiment Today?

Photo from the Milgram Experiment.

More than fifty years ago, then Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted the famous—or infamous—experiments on destructive obedience that have come to be known as “Milgram’s shocking experiments” (pun usually intended). Milgram began his experiments in July 1961, the same month that the trial of Adolf Eichmann—the German bureaucrat responsible for transporting Jews to the extermination camps during the Holocaust—concluded in Jerusalem. The trial was made famous by the philosopher Hannah Arendt’s reports, later published in book form as Eichmann in Jerusalem . Arendt claimed that Eichmann was a colorless bureaucrat who blandly followed orders without much thought for the consequences, and whose obedient behavior demonstrated the “banality of evil.”

Milgram himself was Jewish, and his original question was whether nations other than Germany would differ in their degrees of conformity to authority. He assumed that the citizens of America, home of rugged individualism and apple pie, would display much lower levels of conformity when commanded by authorities to engage in behavior that might harm others. His Yale experiments were designed to set a national baseline.

Half of a century after Milgram probed the nature of destructive obedience to authority, we are faced with the unsettling question: What would citizens do today?

The Original Experiment

In Milgram’s original experiment, participants took part in what they thought was a “learning task.” This task was designed to investigate how punishment—in this case in the form of electric shocks—affected learning. Volunteers thought they were participating in pairs, but their partner was in fact a confederate of the experimenter. A draw to determine who would be the “teacher” and who would be the “learner” was rigged; the true volunteer always ended up as the teacher and the confederate as learner.

The pairs were moved into separate rooms, connected by a microphone. The teacher read aloud a series of word pairs, such as “red–hammer,” which the learner was instructed to memorize. The teacher then read the target word (red), and the learner was to select the original paired word from four alternatives (ocean, fan, hammer, glue).

Did Milgram’s experiment demonstrate that humans have a universal propensity to destructive obedience or that they are merely products of their cultural moment?

If the learner erred, the teacher was instructed to deliver an electric shock as punishment, increasing the shock by 15-volt increments with each successive error. Although the teacher could not see the learner in the adjacent room, he could hear his responses to the shocks as well as to the questions. According to a prearranged script, at 75 volts, the learner started to scream; from 150 volts to 330 volts, he protested with increasing intensity, complaining that his heart was bothering him; at 330 volts, he absolutely refused to go on. After that the teacher’s questions were met by silence. Whenever the teacher hesitated, the experimenter pressed the teacher to continue, insisting that the “the experiment requires that you continue” and reminding him that “although the shocks may be painful, they cause no permanent tissue damage.”

Milgram was horrified by the results of the experiment . In the “remote condition” version of the experiment described above, 65 percent of the subjects (26 out of 40) continued to inflict shocks right up to the 450-volt level, despite the learner’s screams, protests, and, at the 330-volt level, disturbing silence. Moreover, once participants had reached 450 volts, they obeyed the experimenter’s instruction to deliver 450-volt shocks when the subject continued to fail to respond.

Putting Milgram’s Work in Context

Milgram’s experiment became the subject of a host of moral and methodological critiques in the 1960s. These became somewhat moot with the publication of the American Psychological Association’s ethical principles of research with human subjects in 1973 and the restrictions on the use of human subjects included in the National Research Act of 1974, which effectively precluded psychologists from conducting experiments that, like Milgram’s, were likely to cause serious distress to subjects. This was undoubtedly a good thing for experimental subjects, but it also blocked attempts to answer a question that many were asking: Did Milgram’s experiment demonstrate that humans have a universal propensity to destructive obedience or that they are merely products of their cultural moment?

Cross-cultural studies at the time provided a partial answer. The U.S. mean obedience rate of 60.94 percent was not significantly different from the foreign mean obedience rate of 65.94 percent, although there was wide variation in the results (rates ranged from 31 to 91 percent in the U.S. and from 28 to 87.5 percent in foreign studies) and design of the studies. However, a historical question remained: Would subjects today still display the same levels of destructive obedience as the subjects of fifty years ago?

There are grounds to believe they would not. In the 1950s, psychologists and the general public were shocked by the results of Solomon Asch’s experiments on conformity . In a series of line-judgement studies, subjects were asked to decide which of three comparison lines matched a target line. Crucially, these judgements were made in a social context, among other participants. Only one of the subjects in the experiment was a naive subject, while the other six were confederates of the experimenter instructed to give incorrect answers. When they gave answers that were incorrect, and seemed plainly incorrect to the naive subjects, about one-third of the naive subjects gave answers that conformed with the majority. In other words, people were happy to ignore the evidence before their eyes in order to conform to the group consensus.

For some observers, these results threatened America’s image as the land of individualism and autonomy. Yet in the 1980s, replications of Asch’s experiment failed to detect even minimal levels of conformity, suggesting that Asch’s results were a child of 1950s, the age of “other-directed” people made famous by David Reisman in his 1950 work The Lonely Crowd . Might the same failure to replicate be true today if people faced Milgram’s experiment anew?

Understanding Milgram’s Work Today

Although full replications of Milgram’s experiment are precluded in the United States because of ethical and legal constraints on experimenters, there have been replications attempted in other countries, and attempts by U.S. experimenters to sidestep these constraints.

A replication conducted by Dariusz Dolinski and colleagues in 2015 generated levels of obedience higher than the original Milgram experiment , although the study may be criticized because it employed lower levels of shock.

More intriguing was the 2009 replication by Jerry Burger, who found an ingenious way of navigating the ethical concerns about Milgram’s original experiment . Burger noted that in the original experiment 79 percent of subjects who continued after the 150 volts—after the learner’s first screams—continued all the way to the end of the scale, at 450 volts. Assuming that the same would be true of subjects today, Burger determined how many were willing to deliver shocks beyond the 150-volt level, at which point the experiment was discontinued.

Given social support, most subjects refused to continue to administer shocks, suggesting that social solidarity serves as a kind of a defense against destructive obedience to authority.

About 70 percent were willing to continue the experiment at this point, suggesting that subjects remain just as compliant in the 21st century. Nonetheless, Burger’s study was based upon a questionable assumption, namely that 150-volt compliance has remained a reliable predictor of 450-volt compliance. Subjects today might be willing to go a bit beyond 150 volts, but perhaps not to the far end of the scale (after learners demand that the experiment be discontinued etc.). In fact, this assumption begs the critical question at issue.

However, French television came to the rescue. One game show replicated Milgram’s experiment , with the game show host as the authority and the “questioner” as the subject. In a study reported in the 2012 European Review of Applied Psychology , J.-L. Beauvois and colleagues replicated Milgram’s voice feedback condition , with identical props, instructions, and scripted learner responses and host prods. One might question whether a game show host has as much authority as a scientific experimenter, but whatever authority they had managed to elicit levels of obedience equivalent to Milgram’s original experiment (in fact somewhat higher, 81 percent as opposed to the original 65 percent). It would seem that at least French nationals are as compliant today as Milgram’s original subjects in the 1960s.

In fact, the replication suggests a darker picture. One of the optimistic findings of the original Milgram experiment was his condition 7, in which there were three teachers, two of whom (both confederates of the experimenter) defied the experimenter. Given this social support, most subjects refused to continue to administer shocks, suggesting that social solidarity serves as a kind of a defense against destructive obedience to authority. Unfortunately, this did not occur in the French replication, in which the production assistant protested about the immorality of the procedure with virtually no effect on levels of obedience. And unfortunately, not in the Burger study either: Burger found that the intervention of an accomplice who refused to continue had no effect on the levels of obedience. So it may be that we are in fact more compliant today than Milgram’s original subjects, unmoved by social support. A dark thought for our dark times.

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Understanding the Milgram Experiment in Psychology

A closer look at Milgram's controversial studies of obedience

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

Emily Swaim is a board-certified science editor who has worked with top digital publishing brands like Voices for Biodiversity, Study.com, GoodTherapy, and Vox.

Isabelle Adam (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) via Flickr

Factors That Influence Obedience

• Ethical Concerns
• Replications

How far do you think people would go to obey an authority figure? Would they refuse to obey if the order went against their values or social expectations? Those questions were at the heart of an infamous and controversial study known as the Milgram obedience experiments.

Yale University  psychologist   Stanley Milgram  conducted these experiments during the 1960s. They explored the effects of authority on obedience. In the experiments, an authority figure ordered participants to deliver what they believed were dangerous electrical shocks to another person. These results suggested that people are highly influenced by authority and highly obedient . More recent investigations cast doubt on some of the implications of Milgram's findings and even the results and procedures themselves. Despite its problems, the study has, without question, made a significant impact on psychology .

At a Glance

Milgram's experiments posed the question: Would people obey orders, even if they believed doing so would harm another person? Milgram's findings suggested the answer was yes, they would. The experiments have long been controversial, both because of the startling findings and the ethical problems with the research. More recently, experts have re-examined the studies, suggesting that participants were often coerced into obeying and that at least some participants recognized that the other person was just pretending to be shocked. Such findings call into question the study's validity and authenticity, but some replications suggest that people are surprisingly prone to obeying authority.

History of the Milgram Experiments

Milgram started his experiments in 1961, shortly after the trial of the World War II criminal Adolf Eichmann had begun. Eichmann’s defense that he was merely following instructions when he ordered the deaths of millions of Jews roused Milgram’s interest.

In his 1974 book "Obedience to Authority," Milgram posed the question, "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?"

Procedure in the Milgram Experiment

The participants in the most famous variation of the Milgram experiment were 40 men recruited using newspaper ads. In exchange for their participation, each person was paid $4.50.

Milgram developed an intimidating shock generator, with shock levels starting at 15 volts and increasing in 15-volt increments all the way up to 450 volts. The many switches were labeled with terms including "slight shock," "moderate shock," and "danger: severe shock." The final three switches were labeled simply with an ominous "XXX."

Each participant took the role of a "teacher" who would then deliver a shock to the "student" in a neighboring room whenever an incorrect answer was given. While participants believed that they were delivering real shocks to the student, the “student” was a confederate in the experiment who was only pretending to be shocked.

As the experiment progressed, the participant would hear the learner plead to be released or even complain about a heart condition. Once they reached the 300-volt level, the learner would bang on the wall and demand to be released.

Beyond this point, the learner became completely silent and refused to answer any more questions. The experimenter then instructed the participant to treat this silence as an incorrect response and deliver a further shock.

Most participants asked the experimenter whether they should continue. The experimenter then responded with a series of commands to prod the participant along:

• "Please continue."
• "The experiment requires that you continue."
• "It is absolutely essential that you continue."
• "You have no other choice; you must go on."

Results of the Milgram Experiment

In the Milgram experiment, obedience was measured by the level of shock that the participant was willing to deliver. While many of the subjects became extremely agitated, distraught, and angry at the experimenter, they nevertheless continued to follow orders all the way to the end.

Milgram's results showed that 65% of the participants in the study delivered the maximum shocks. Of the 40 participants in the study, 26 delivered the maximum shocks, while 14 stopped before reaching the highest levels.

Why did so many of the participants in this experiment perform a seemingly brutal act when instructed by an authority figure? According to Milgram, there are some situational factors that can explain such high levels of obedience:

• The physical presence of an authority figure dramatically increased compliance .
• The fact that Yale (a trusted and authoritative academic institution) sponsored the study led many participants to believe that the experiment must be safe.
• The selection of teacher and learner status seemed random.
• Participants assumed that the experimenter was a competent expert.
• The shocks were said to be painful, not dangerous.

Later experiments conducted by Milgram indicated that the presence of rebellious peers dramatically reduced obedience levels. When other people refused to go along with the experimenter's orders, 36 out of 40 participants refused to deliver the maximum shocks.

More recent work by researchers suggests that while people do tend to obey authority figures, the process is not necessarily as cut-and-dried as Milgram depicted it.

In a 2012 essay published in PLoS Biology , researchers suggested that the degree to which people are willing to obey the questionable orders of an authority figure depends largely on two key factors:

• How much the individual agrees with the orders
• How much they identify with the person giving the orders

While it is clear that people are often far more susceptible to influence, persuasion , and obedience than they would often like to be, they are far from mindless machines just taking orders. 

Another study that analyzed Milgram's results concluded that eight factors influenced the likelihood that people would progress up to the 450-volt shock:

• The experimenter's directiveness
• Legitimacy and consistency
• Group pressure to disobey
• Indirectness of proximity
• Intimacy of the relation between the teacher and learner
• Distance between the teacher and learner

Ethical Concerns in the Milgram Experiment

Milgram's experiments have long been the source of considerable criticism and controversy. From the get-go, the ethics of his experiments were highly dubious. Participants were subjected to significant psychological and emotional distress.

Some of the major ethical issues in the experiment were related to:

• The use of deception
• The lack of protection for the participants who were involved
• Pressure from the experimenter to continue even after asking to stop, interfering with participants' right to withdraw

Due to concerns about the amount of anxiety experienced by many of the participants, everyone was supposedly debriefed at the end of the experiment. The researchers reported that they explained the procedures and the use of deception.

Critics of the study have argued that many of the participants were still confused about the exact nature of the experiment, and recent findings suggest that many participants were not debriefed at all.

Replications of the Milgram Experiment

While Milgram’s research raised serious ethical questions about the use of human subjects in psychology experiments , his results have also been consistently replicated in further experiments. One review further research on obedience and found that Milgram’s findings hold true in other experiments. In one study, researchers conducted a study designed to replicate Milgram's classic obedience experiment. The researchers made several alterations to Milgram's experiment.

• The maximum shock level was 150 volts as opposed to the original 450 volts.
• Participants were also carefully screened to eliminate those who might experience adverse reactions to the experiment.

The results of the new experiment revealed that participants obeyed at roughly the same rate that they did when Milgram conducted his original study more than 40 years ago.

Some psychologists suggested that in spite of the changes made in the replication, the study still had merit and could be used to further explore some of the situational factors that also influenced the results of Milgram's study. But other psychologists suggested that the replication was too dissimilar to Milgram's original study to draw any meaningful comparisons.

One study examined people's beliefs about how they would do compared to the participants in Milgram's experiments. They found that most people believed they would stop sooner than the average participants. These findings applied to both those who had never heard of Milgram's experiments and those who were familiar with them. In fact, those who knew about Milgram's experiments actually believed that they would stop even sooner than other people.

Another novel replication involved recruiting participants in pairs and having them take turns acting as either an 'agent' or 'victim.' Agents then received orders to shock the victim. The results suggest that only around 3.3% disobeyed the experimenter's orders.

Recent Criticisms and New Findings

Psychologist Gina Perry suggests that much of what we think we know about Milgram's famous experiments is only part of the story. While researching an article on the topic, she stumbled across hundreds of audiotapes found in Yale archives that documented numerous variations of Milgram's shock experiments.

Participants Were Often Coerced

While Milgram's reports of his process report methodical and uniform procedures, the audiotapes reveal something different. During the experimental sessions, the experimenters often went off-script and coerced the subjects into continuing the shocks.

"The slavish obedience to authority we have come to associate with Milgram’s experiments comes to sound much more like bullying and coercion when you listen to these recordings," Perry suggested in an article for Discover Magazine .

Few Participants Were Really Debriefed

Milgram suggested that the subjects were "de-hoaxed" after the experiments. He claimed he later surveyed the participants and found that 84% were glad to have participated, while only 1% regretted their involvement.

However, Perry's findings revealed that of the 700 or so people who took part in different variations of his studies between 1961 and 1962, very few were truly debriefed.

A true debriefing would have involved explaining that the shocks weren't real and that the other person was not injured. Instead, Milgram's sessions were mainly focused on calming the subjects down before sending them on their way.

Many participants left the experiment in a state of considerable distress. While the truth was revealed to some months or even years later, many were simply never told a thing.

Variations Led to Differing Results

Another problem is that the version of the study presented by Milgram and the one that's most often retold does not tell the whole story. The statistic that 65% of people obeyed orders applied only to one variation of the experiment, in which 26 out of 40 subjects obeyed.

In other variations, far fewer people were willing to follow the experimenters' orders, and in some versions of the study, not a single participant obeyed.

Participants Guessed the Learner Was Faking

Perry even tracked down some of the people who took part in the experiments, as well as Milgram's research assistants. What she discovered is that many of his subjects had deduced what Milgram's intent was and knew that the "learner" was merely pretending.

Such findings cast Milgram's results in a new light. It suggests that not only did Milgram intentionally engage in some hefty misdirection to obtain the results he wanted but that many of his participants were simply playing along.

An analysis of an unpublished study by Milgram's assistant, Taketo Murata, found that participants who believed they were really delivering a shock were less likely to obey, while those who did not believe they were actually inflicting pain were more willing to obey. In other words, the perception of pain increased defiance, while skepticism of pain increased obedience.

A review of Milgram's research materials suggests that the experiments exerted more pressure to obey than the original results suggested. Other variations of the experiment revealed much lower rates of obedience, and many of the participants actually altered their behavior when they guessed the true nature of the experiment.

Impact of the Milgram Experiment

Since there is no way to truly replicate the experiment due to its serious ethical and moral problems, determining whether Milgram's experiment really tells us anything about the power of obedience is impossible to determine.

So why does Milgram's experiment maintain such a powerful hold on our imaginations, even decades after the fact? Perry believes that despite all its ethical issues and the problem of never truly being able to replicate Milgram's procedures, the study has taken on the role of what she calls a "powerful parable."

Milgram's work might not hold the answers to what makes people obey or even the degree to which they truly obey. It has, however, inspired other researchers to explore what makes people follow orders and, perhaps more importantly, what leads them to question authority.

Recent findings undermine the scientific validity of the study. Milgram's work is also not truly replicable due to its ethical problems. However, the study has led to additional research on how situational factors can affect obedience to authority.

Milgram’s experiment has become a classic in psychology , demonstrating the dangers of obedience. The research suggests that situational variables have a stronger sway than personality factors in determining whether people will obey an authority figure. However, other psychologists argue that both external and internal factors heavily influence obedience, such as personal beliefs and overall temperament.

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Perry G, Brannigan A, Wanner RA, Stam H. Credibility and incredulity in Milgram’s obedience experiments: A reanalysis of an unpublished test . Soc Psychol Q . 2020;83(1):88-106. doi:10.1177/0190272519861952

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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Milgram’s Obedience Experiment: A Landmark Study in Social Psychology

A simple command, a series of electric shocks, and a chilling insight into the depths of human obedience: Stanley Milgram’s groundbreaking experiment forever changed our understanding of the power of authority. This landmark study, conducted in the early 1960s, sent shockwaves through the scientific community and continues to provoke intense debate and reflection to this day.

Picture yourself in a dimly lit laboratory, faced with a stern-looking experimenter in a white coat. You’re instructed to administer increasingly powerful electric shocks to a stranger in another room. Would you comply? How far would you go? These are the questions that Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments sought to answer, redefining our understanding of human behavior in the process.

Milgram, a Yale University psychologist, was haunted by the atrocities of World War II. How could ordinary people commit such horrific acts? Was there something uniquely evil about German culture, or did the capacity for cruelty lurk within us all? These burning questions led him to devise one of the most controversial and influential studies in the history of psychology.

The historical context of Milgram’s work cannot be overstated. The echoes of the Holocaust still reverberated through society, and the world grappled with the chilling realization that seemingly ordinary individuals could become instruments of unspeakable evil. Milgram’s experiment aimed to shed light on the mechanisms of obedience that could lead people to act against their own moral compass.

The Milgram Experiment: Unraveling the Mystery of Obedience

So, how did Milgram set about exploring the dark corners of human compliance? The setup was deceptively simple, yet fiendishly clever. Participants were told they were taking part in a study on memory and learning. They were assigned the role of “teacher” and instructed to administer electric shocks to a “learner” (actually an actor) whenever they gave incorrect answers to a series of questions.

The twist? The shocks were fake, but the participants didn’t know that. As the experiment progressed, the supposed voltage of the shocks increased, accompanied by pre-recorded cries of pain from the unseen “learner.” The experimenter, an authority figure in a lab coat, urged the participants to continue despite any reservations they might have.

It’s worth noting that Milgram’s study employed a hefty dose of deception. Participants were led to believe they were actually causing pain to another person, a fact that would later spark heated ethical debates. But Milgram argued that this level of deception was necessary to create a realistic scenario and elicit genuine responses.

The roles in the experiment were carefully crafted. The experimenter represented unquestionable authority, while the unseen “learner” embodied the voice of conscience and empathy. Caught between these two forces, the participant-as-teacher faced a moral dilemma that would push the boundaries of their obedience.

Milgram didn’t stop at just one version of the experiment. He conducted numerous variations, tweaking factors like the proximity of the learner, the presence of rebellious confederates, and the setting of the study. These variations would prove crucial in understanding the nuances of obedience and the factors that influence our willingness to comply with authority.

Shocking Results: The Dark Side of Human Nature Revealed

The results of Milgram’s experiment sent shockwaves through the scientific community and beyond. Contrary to the predictions of experts, who believed only a small fraction of participants would fully obey, a staggering 65% of subjects in the original study continued to the highest level of shocks, despite the apparent distress of the learner.

This revelation was nothing short of earth-shattering. It suggested that obedience to authority was far more ingrained in human behavior than previously thought. The study painted a sobering picture of how easily ordinary individuals could be led to commit acts they would normally consider unethical or harmful.

But what factors influenced these high rates of obedience? Milgram identified several key elements:

1. The gradual nature of the task: Participants were eased into the process with small shocks, making it harder to refuse as the intensity increased. 2. The presence of an authority figure: The experimenter’s calm insistence and air of expertise made it difficult for participants to disobey. 3. The division of responsibility: Participants could rationalize their actions by believing the experimenter was ultimately responsible. 4. The absence of previous disobedience models: With no examples of resistance, participants found it harder to break the pattern of compliance.

The emotional toll on participants was palpable. Many exhibited signs of extreme stress, including trembling, sweating, and nervous laughter. Some even experienced full-blown anxiety attacks. Yet, despite their obvious discomfort, the majority continued to obey.

Statistically speaking, the results were robust. Across various replications and variations of the experiment, obedience rates remained surprisingly high, typically ranging from 50% to 65%. These consistent findings lent credibility to Milgram’s conclusions and underscored the universality of the obedience phenomenon.

Ethical Quandaries: The Controversy Surrounding Milgram’s Work

As groundbreaking as Milgram’s findings were, they came at a cost. The experiment raised serious ethical concerns that continue to be debated to this day. Critics argued that the psychological distress inflicted on participants was unjustifiable, even in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

Imagine being in the shoes of a participant. You’ve just been led to believe that you’ve potentially caused serious harm to another person. The guilt, anxiety, and self-doubt that followed were very real, even after the deception was revealed. Some participants reported lasting emotional effects, questioning their own moral character and capacity for cruelty.

The issue of informed consent also came under scrutiny. While participants were told they could leave at any time, the pressure to continue from the authority figure made this theoretical right difficult to exercise in practice. This raised questions about the true voluntariness of participation in such psychologically intense experiments.

Methodological criticisms were also leveled at Milgram’s work. Some argued that the artificial laboratory setting limited the generalizability of the results to real-world situations. Others questioned whether the participants truly believed they were administering real shocks, suggesting that some might have seen through the deception.

Despite these criticisms, many researchers defended the value of Milgram’s work, arguing that the insights gained outweighed the temporary discomfort experienced by participants. This debate continues to shape discussions around research ethics and the boundaries of acceptable scientific inquiry.

Beyond the Lab: Real-World Implications of Milgram’s Findings

The implications of Milgram’s work extend far beyond the confines of the psychology laboratory. His findings have profound relevance to our understanding of obedience psychology and its role in society at large.

One of the most chilling applications of Milgram’s work is in understanding how ordinary people can become complicit in atrocities. From war crimes to corporate scandals, the experiment sheds light on the psychological mechanisms that allow individuals to rationalize harmful actions when ordered by an authority figure.

In the realm of organizational psychology, Milgram’s findings have influenced approaches to leadership and management. Understanding the power of authority can help create more ethical workplace cultures and prevent the abuse of power within hierarchical structures.

Military and law enforcement training programs have also been shaped by Milgram’s insights. Recognizing the potential for blind obedience, many organizations now incorporate ethical decision-making training to help personnel navigate complex moral situations.

The ripple effects of the obedience experiments can be seen in countless subsequent studies in social psychology. Researchers have explored variations on Milgram’s themes, investigating factors like group dynamics, diffusion of responsibility, and the role of dissent in challenging authority.

Modern Perspectives: Milgram’s Legacy in the 21st Century

In the decades since Milgram’s original study, researchers have continued to explore the phenomenon of obedience in new and innovative ways. Recent replications have sought to address ethical concerns while still capturing the essence of the original experiment.

One fascinating development has been the exploration of cross-cultural perspectives on obedience. Studies conducted in various countries have revealed both similarities and differences in how people respond to authority, shedding light on the interplay between cultural norms and individual behavior.

The advent of virtual reality has opened up new avenues for obedience research. VR simulations allow researchers to create immersive scenarios that mimic real-world situations without the ethical concerns of causing actual harm. These studies have largely corroborated Milgram’s findings, suggesting that the tendency towards obedience remains strong even in digital environments.

It’s worth noting that the landscape of human subject research has changed dramatically since Milgram’s time. Modern ethical guidelines place much stricter limits on the use of deception and the potential for psychological harm in experiments. While this protects participants, it also presents challenges for researchers seeking to study obedience in realistic settings.

The Lasting Impact: Lessons from Milgram’s Obedience Studies

As we reflect on Milgram’s experiment and its enduring legacy, several key lessons emerge:

1. The power of situational factors: Milgram’s work demonstrated that behavior is often more influenced by immediate situational pressures than by individual personality traits or values.

2. The importance of questioning authority: The experiments underscore the need for critical thinking and the courage to challenge unjust orders, even when they come from seemingly legitimate sources.

3. The complexity of human nature: Milgram’s findings reveal the dual capacity for both obedience and resistance within each of us, highlighting the nuanced nature of human behavior.

4. The ethical responsibilities of researchers: The controversy surrounding the experiments has led to more rigorous ethical standards in psychological research, emphasizing the importance of balancing scientific inquiry with participant well-being.

As we look to the future, the questions raised by Milgram’s work remain as relevant as ever. In an age of increasing polarization and the rise of authoritarian tendencies in various parts of the world, understanding the mechanisms of obedience and resistance is crucial.

The digital age presents new challenges and opportunities for obedience research. How do online authority figures influence behavior? Can virtual interactions lead to real-world compliance? These questions represent the next frontier in our ongoing exploration of human obedience.

In conclusion, Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments stand as a testament to the power of psychological research to illuminate the darkest corners of human nature. While controversial, these studies have profoundly shaped our understanding of authority, ethics, and the complex dynamics of human behavior. As we continue to grapple with issues of power and compliance in our societies, the lessons from Milgram’s work serve as both a warning and a call to action, reminding us of our capacity for both blind obedience and courageous resistance.

The legacy of Milgram’s work intertwines with other landmark studies in social psychology, such as the Stanford Prison Experiment , which further explored the dark side of human behavior under the influence of authority and role-playing. Together, these studies form a crucial part of our understanding of social dynamics and the potential for both good and evil within the human psyche.

It’s important to note that Milgram’s experiments, along with several others from that era, are now considered part of a group of unethical psychological experiments due to the potential harm inflicted on participants. However, the valuable insights gained from these studies have led to significant advancements in research ethics and our understanding of human behavior.

The phrase “I was just following orders” has taken on new meaning in light of Milgram’s work, challenging us to consider the complex interplay between individual responsibility and the influence of authority. This understanding has implications not only for psychology but for fields ranging from law and politics to education and business.

As we continue to unravel the mysteries of human behavior, Stanley Milgram’s contributions to psychology remain foundational. His work serves as a springboard for ongoing research and a constant reminder of the need for ethical vigilance in scientific inquiry.

While Milgram’s experiments are often grouped with other disturbing psychological experiments , their impact on our understanding of human nature is undeniable. They continue to provoke thought, debate, and further research, ensuring that the questions Milgram raised over half a century ago remain relevant in our quest to understand the complexities of human behavior and the power of authority in shaping our actions.

References:

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

2. Blass, T. (2009). The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram. Basic Books.

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. Perry, G. (2012). Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments. Scribe Publications.

7. 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.

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. (2016). Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm and Live with Themselves. Worth Publishers.

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The Shocking Truth of the Notorious Milgram Obedience Experiments

It’s one of the most well-known psychology experiments in history – the 1961 tests in which social psychologist Stanley Milgram invited volunteers to take part in a study about memory and learning. Its actual aim, though, was to investigate obedience to authority – and Milgram reported that fully 65 percent of volunteers had  repeatedly administered increasing electric shocks  to a man they believed to be in severe pain.

In the decades since, the results have been held up as proof of the depths of ordinary people’s depravity in service to an authority figure. At the time, this had deep and resonant connections to the Holocaust and Nazi Germany – so resonant, in fact, that they might have led Milgram to dramatically misrepresent his hallmark findings.

Nazi Overtones

Stanley Milgram framed his research from the get-go as both inspired by and an explanation of Nazi behavior. He mentioned the gas chambers in the opening paragraph of his first published article; he strengthened the link and made it more explicit twelve years later in his book,  Obedience to Authority .

At the time Milgram’s research was first published, the trial of high profile Nazi Adolph Eichmann was still fresh in the public mind. Eichmann had been captured in Buenos Aires and smuggled out of the country to stand trial in Israel. The trial was the first of its kind to be televised.

Suddenly the Holocaust was in American living rooms.  A procession of witnesses, most of them survivors, gave testimony while Eichmann, impassive and ordinary looking, looked on from inside a glass bullet proof box. Hannah Arendt, covering the trial, dwelled on his terrifying ordinariness, and famously coined the phrase the “banality of evil” to describe it.

Milgram stressed the connection between Nazi functionaries like Eichmann and the subjects in his lab. His findings appeared to demonstrate that ordinary people would inflict pain on someone else simply because someone in authority told them to.

In his 1974 book Milgram described how a person surrenders his will with that of an authority, entering an “agentic state.” For subordinates of Hitler in Germany and Stalin in Russia, this state was a “profound slumber” compared to the “light doze” of subjects in his lab, but the process was the same. Once a person merges with an authority who gives the orders, and enters the twilight zone of the agentic state, even though he might be doing inhumane things that are “alien to his nature” he feels “virtually guiltless.”

The trouble was that this zombie-like, slavish obedience that Milgram described wasn’t what he’d observed.

Truth in Numbers

The statistical story of the obedience experiments is not nearly as straightforward as you’d think. The 65% headline figure, of people who followed the experimenters’ orders and went to the maximum voltage on the shock machine, implies that there was a single experiment. In fact there were 24 different variations, or mini dramas, each with a different script, actors and experimental set up.

It’s surprising how often Milgram’s 24 different variations are wrongly conflated into this single statistic. The 65% result was made famous because it was the first variation that Milgram reported in his first journal article, yet few noted that it was an experiment that involved just 40 subjects.

By examining records of the experiment held at Yale, I found that in over half of the 24 variations, 60% of people  disobeyed  the instructions of the authority and refused to continue.

Then there are the methodological problems with the experiment. The highly controlled laboratory study that Milgram described actually involved a large degree of improvisation and variation not just between conditions but from one subject to another. You’d expect this to happen in the pilot phase of a study when the protocol is still being refined, but not once a study has begun.

Straying From Script

In listening to the original recordings of the experiments, it’s clear that Milgram’s experimenter John Williams deviated significantly from the script in his interactions with subjects. Williams – with Milgram’s approval – improvised in all manner of ways to exert pressure on subjects to keep administering shocks.

He left the lab to “check” on the learner, returning to reassure the teacher that the learner was OK. Instead of sticking to the standard four verbal commands described in accounts of the experimental protocol, Williams often abandoned the script and commanded some subjects 25 times and more to keep going. Teachers were blocked in their efforts to swap places with the learner or to check on him themselves.

The slavish obedience to authority we have come to associate with Milgram’s experiments comes to sound much more like bullying and coercion when you listen to these recordings.

Subjects’ Suspicions

Milgram went to great lengths with the stagecraft of his experiment, and was dismissive of subjects’ claims that they had seen through the hoax. Yet unpublished papers at Yale show that suspicion was alive and well among many of Milgram’s subjects (which is not surprising, given that Candid Camera was the most popular TV show in the United States at that time).

Subjects wrote to Milgram or called him afterwards to describe what had made them suspicious. Some commented on how the learner’s cries seemed to be coming from a speaker in the corner of the room, suggesting it was a tape recording. Others noticed the check given to the learner looked dog-eared and worn, an indication that it had been handed over many times before. The experimenter’s lack of concern for the learner and failure to respond to the learner’s complaints suggested there was nothing to worry about. Some subjects described how they had surreptitiously pressed switches of lower voltage but still the learner’s cries intensified.

But this skepticism of the subjects – whose belief in the experimental set up is pivotal to the validity of the experiment – has consistently been downplayed in discussions of the relevance and meaning of the results.

Poet Scientist

In the fifty years since publication of Milgram’s first journal article the obedience research continues to be cited as evidence of an enduring psychological truth: inside all of us is a Nazi concentration camp guard waiting to be called into service. Yet my archival research and examination of primary sources and that of other scholars contradicts this claim.

Milgram himself was privately aware of the methodological weakness of his research and struggled with many of the issues about the validity of experiments and their generalisability beyond the lab. Privately Milgram reflected that his work was more art than science, and described himself as a “hopeful poet.”

Poet or scientist, his determination to make a contribution to an understanding of one of the pressing issues of his generation led him to frame, shape and edit the story of his research for maximum impact. And while Milgram may have not measured obedience to authority in his lab his findings do offer us a powerful lesson: to question the authority of science and to be more critical of the stories we’ve been told.

Gina Perry is a psychologist and author of the book  Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments ,  published in September 2013.

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