We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)

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From Wikipedia:

'The Milgram experiment was a seminal series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. Milgram first described his research in 1963 in an article published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, and later discussed his findings in greater depth in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.'

From Solisbury Hill (summary of Weiten, 1992):

In a study published in 1963, Stanley Milgram of Yale University investigated the human tendency to adhere to other's wishes or orders, even when those orders directly violate one's own ethical standards. Milgram's study has become one of the most celebrated and controversial social experiements of our time. In the original experiment, 40 subjects were recruited from the community to participate in a "learning experiment" looking at the effect of punishment on learning. At the laboratory, the subjects were met by a grey-lab-coated experimenter and another "subject", a 47 year old accountant (in fact the accountant was an actor and an accomplice of the experiment). Experimental roles were then "randomly" designated, although the draw was rigged so that the accomplice always became the "learner" and the real subject the "teacher".

The accomplice was strapped into an electrical generator with the subject watching. The idea was that whenever the "learner" made a mistake on the questions to be asked, the "teacher" would then deliver a shock through the generator to the "learner". The subjects were told that, while the shocks were painful, no permanent tissue damage would result. Once the "learner" had been strapped in, the subject was led to an adjoining room where the switches for the generator were housed, but where the "learner" could not be seen. There were thirty switches from 15 to 450 volts with rather helpful labels above stating at increasing voltages: "slight shock", "danger: severe shock" and "xxx". again all of this was phoney, but looked impressive and (more importantly) realistic, particualrly to the subject.

As the experiment progressed and the accomplice continued to get answers wrong, the subjects were instructed to increase the voltage with each wrong answer. The accomplice would scream and yell more loudly with each successive shock. At 300 volts, he began pounding on the walls and stopped attempting to answer the questions. At this, subjects usually turned to the experimenter who firmly stated that no answer was the same as a wrong answer and that stronger shocks should continue, even though the "learner" was now silent.

If a subject attempted to stop the experiment they were flatly informed that "It is absolutely essential that you continue". If the subject refused to cooperate further or once the maximum shock had been administered, the experiment ended and subjects were debriefed on what was really going on.

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The Milgram Experiment Podcast

3 Comments

Yeah, I remember watching film of this experiment in college. I think we sort of giggled nervously through the whole thing.

I'm a social psychologist and -every- time I show the Milgram film in class, students giggle nervously. I think it's because the exp is upsetting and the "Milgram People" are so psychologically distant from us (eg in dress) that we can giggle to distance ourselves from negative emotions. I've stopped using the Milgram film and use this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqUm-Zk3_Ws
and get no giggles.

cheers bill.

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This page contains a single entry by birdbath published on July 23, 2007 11:25 AM.

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