Milgram’s Procedures

• WHERE DID THE STUDY TAKE PLACE?

  YALE UNIVERSITY
• ON ARRIVAL, WHO WERE THE PARTICIPANTS GREETED BY?

  The “experimenter“ (a man dressed in a lab coat)
• WHO ELSE WAS AT THE LAB?

  Mr Wallace (a 47 year old “participant“ who was an accountant)
• WHAT WAS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THOSE WHO WERE ALSO AT THE STUDY?

  They were confederates (accomplices of Milgram)
• HOW DID THE PARTICIPANTS KNOW WHAT ROLE THEY’D PLAY?

  Participants drew slips of paper to decide which one of them would play the role of the researcher or the learner
• WHAT WAS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ROLE PICKING?

  The selection was rigged as the participant was always assigned the teacher and Mr Wallace as the learner.
• WHERE WERE THE LEARNER AND TEACHER TAKEN?

  To the experimental room.
• WHAT HAPPENED IN THE EXPERIMENTAL ROOM?

  The learner was strapped to a chair and an electrode was placed on their wrists which connected to a shock generator in an adjourning room.
• WHAT ARE THE SPECIFICATIONS OF THE SHOCK GENERATOR?

  • Had 30 switches on it
  • 15v- 450v
  • Every 4 switches were labelled
  • 15v (slight shock), 255v (intense shock) 450 (XXX, potentially fatal)
• HOW DID THE EXPERIMENTER SHOW THE TEACHER PTP THAT THE SHOCKS WERE REAL?

  Experimenter gave a sample shock.
• WHAT WAS THE LEARNING TASK?

  • The teacher was told to administer a shock when a learner gave an incorrect answer to a word pair, increasing the voltage each time
• WHAT WAS THE LEARNER TOLD DURING THE LEARNING TASK?

  To make no protest until the shocks reached 300V
• WHAT WAS THR LEARNER TOLD TO DO AT 300V?

  Make a pound on the wall and thereafter make no further comments.