Milgram

• Aim: Investigate how obedient people would be in a situation where following orders would break personal moral codes to test the hypothesis that “Germans were different” (from the Holocaust)
• Sample: Advertised for 40 volunteers (men aged 20-50) for a study on human memory; offering $4.50 (equivalent to £25), they were selected from diverse occupations, educational levels, and ages (volunteer/self-selected sample)
• Participants met Mr Wallace in a rigged allocation of roles; the participant would always be the “teacher” and Mr Wallace the “learner”, who would receive a shock for wrong answers
• They were then placed in separate rooms so Wallace could be heard, not seen, and the naïve participant was given an initial shock (45v) at the beginning (increase realism); the shocks went up in 15V increments up to 450V marked ‘XXX’
• Researcher and Mr Wallace followed a scripted list of responses and prompts, ‘learner’ gave around 3 wrong answers to every correct answer: 180V; complained of a weak heart, 300V; banged on the wall, 315V; refused to answer (silent)
• When the ‘teacher’ objected to the procedure, the researcher responded with 4 prods:

  • “Please continue or Please go on”
  • “The experiment requires that you continue”
  • “It is absolutely essential that you continue”
  • “You have no choice, you must go on”
• Before, experts predicted <1% would inflict the maximum shock and 2.6% would go to 240V but in reality 65% went to maximum shock (450V) and 100% went to 300V
• During the experiment participants showed signs of extreme stress (shook, sweated and stuttered), 14/40 had nervous laughing fits and argued with the researcher but continued to obey anyway
• It's important to note that 35% of participants resisted pressure to obey (stopped between 300-450V) and most people default to the truth and assume they can trust the other person
• Doubters: 56% stated they fully believed the experiment, 24% had some doubts but still believed, 6% weren’t sure, 11% had some doubts and overall didn’t believe, and 2% were sure the learner was not getting shocked
• Conclusion: Milgram concluded that the power of social situation is a determinant of behaviour as we are socialised from a young age to recognise authority and obey those with perceived power
• Milgram's Study

  1963
• All his variations illustrate the power of external, situational factors in influencing obedient behaviours