Milgram - Obedience

• Milgram's procedure (1963)


  40 American men volunteered

  Paired with a confederate to Milgram 

  The draw was fixed - participant always teacher + confederate always learner

  + An Experimenter (also a confederate)(dressed in a grey lab coat)

  the confederate = 'learn' a set of word pairs and the teacher would test his knowledge

  adjacent rooms and teacher positioned in front of a set of controls to administer electric shocks to the learner for each incorrect answer given - reluctance to injure the learner = they were encouraged to continue the procedure
• Milgram's results (1963)


  65% of participants went all the way up to 450 volts ('danger - severe shock')

  100% of participants went up to 300 volts ('intense shock')

  Many of the participants showed signs of emotional distress e.g. shaking, sweating, groaning, seizures
• Milgram's conclusion (1963)


  Under the right conditions (e.g. the presence of a legitimate authority; the agentic state) people will commit acts of destructive obedience towards someone they have just met

  Situational factors may explain destructive obedience