Explored the influence of authority and status on obedience; the experimenter was an ordinary man, not a lab coat-clad researcher, 3 roles: ‘teacher’ (naïve participant), 'learner,’ and ‘experimenter’ (recorded timing/results)
Researcher said to get the ‘learner’ to persist with the word pairs till they were perfect before leaving, instructions to increase shock levels (by 15V at every mistake) was given by the 'experimenter' restated this throughout
All instructions were given by someone the participant thought was another volunteer/an ordinary man
Milgram found that 20% (4/20 participants) gave the maximum shock level; ‘experimenter’ had to go to considerable lengths to persuade the ‘teacher' to keep giving the shocks in the absence of the researche
