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Milgram experiment

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Health and medicine

   The experimenter (E) orders the subject (S) to give what the subject
   believes are painful electric shocks to another subject (A), who is
   actually an actor. Many participants continued to give shocks despite
   pleas for mercy from the actor, as long as the experimenter kept on
   ordering them to do so.
   Enlarge
   The experimenter (E) orders the subject (S) to give what the subject
   believes are painful electric shocks to another subject (A), who is
   actually an actor. Many participants continued to give shocks despite
   pleas for mercy from the actor, as long as the experimenter kept on
   ordering them to do so.

   The Milgram experiment was a series of famous scientific studies of
   social psychology, intended to measure the willingness of a participant
   to obey an authority who instructs the participant to do something that
   may conflict with the participant's personal conscience.

   The experiment was first described in 1963 by Stanley Milgram, a
   psychologist at Yale University, and later discussed in his 1974 book,
   Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.

   The experiments began in July 1961, three months after the start of the
   trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiment to
   answer the question "Could it be that Eichmann and his million
   accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call
   them all accomplices?"

   Milgram summed up in the article "The Perils of Obedience" writing:

     The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous
     importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in
     concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University
     to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another
     person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental
     scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects'
     [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others,
     and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the
     screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The
     extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the
     command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study
     and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

Method of the experiment

   Subjects were recruited for the Yale study through newspaper ads and
   direct mail. The experiments occurred in two rooms in the basement of
   Linsly-Chittenden Hall on the university's Old Campus. The experiment
   was advertised as lasting one hour, for which the respondents would be
   paid $4.50 whether they completed the task or not. The participants
   were men between the ages of 20 and 50, from all educational
   backgrounds, ranging from an elementary school dropout to participants
   with doctoral degrees.

   The role of the experimenter was played by a stern, impassive biology
   teacher dressed in a technician's coat, and the victim was played by an
   Irish-American accountant trained to act for the role. The participant
   and a confederate of the experimenter were told by the experimenter
   that they would be participating in an experiment to test the effects
   of punishment on learning.

   A slip of paper was then given to the participant and another to the
   confederate. The participant was led to believe that one of the slips
   said "learner" and the other said "teacher," and that the participants
   had been given the slips randomly. In fact, both slips said "teacher,"
   but the actor claimed to have the slip that read "learner," thus
   guaranteeing that the participant was always the "teacher." At this
   point, the "teacher" and "learner" were separated into different rooms
   where they could communicate but not see each other. In one version of
   the experiment, the confederate was sure to mention to the participant
   that he had a heart condition.

   The "teacher" was given a 45-volt electric shock from the electro-shock
   generator as a sample of the shock that the "learner" would supposedly
   receive during the experiment. The "teacher" was then given a list of
   word pairs which he was to teach the learner. The teacher began by
   reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then
   read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. The
   learner would press a button to indicate his response. If the answer
   was incorrect, the learner would receive a shock, with the voltage
   increasing with each wrong answer. If correct, the teacher would read
   the next word pair.

   The subjects believed that for each wrong answer, the learner was
   receiving actual shocks. In reality, there were no shocks. After the
   confederate was separated from the subject, the confederate set up a
   tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played
   pre-recorded sounds for each shock level. After a number of voltage
   level increases, the actor started to bang on the wall that separated
   him from the subject. After several times banging on the wall and
   complaining about his heart condition, the learner gave no further
   responses to questions and no further complaints.

   At this point, many people indicated their desire to stop the
   experiment and check on the learner. Some test subjects paused at 135
   volts and began to question the purpose of the experiment. Most
   continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible.
   A few subjects began to laugh nervously or exhibit other signs of
   extreme stress once they heard the screams of pain coming from the
   learner.

   If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment,
   he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this
   order:
    1. Please continue.
    2. The experiment requires that you continue.
    3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
    4. You have no other choice, you must go on.

   If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal
   prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the
   subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession.

Results

   Before the experiment was conducted Milgram polled 14 Yale senior
   psychology majors as to what the results would be. All respondents
   believed that only a sadistic few (average 1.2%), would be prepared to
   give the maximum voltage. Milgram also informally polled his
   colleagues, and found that they believed very few subjects would go
   beyond a very strong shock.

   In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 out of 40) of
   experimental participants administered the experiment's final 450-volt
   shock, though many were quite uncomfortable in doing so; everyone
   paused at some point and questioned the experiment, some even saying
   they would return the check for the money they were paid. No
   participant steadfastly refused to give further shocks before the
   300-volt level. Variants of the experiment were later performed by
   Milgram himself and other psychologists around the world with similar
   results. Apart from confirming the original results the variations have
   tested variables in the experimental setup.

   Dr. Thomas Blass of the University of Maryland Baltimore County
   performed a meta-analysis on the results of repeated performances of
   the experiment. He found that the percentage of participants who are
   prepared to inflict fatal voltages remains remarkably constant, between
   61% and 66%, regardless of time or location.

   There is a little-known coda to the experiment, reported by Philip
   Zimbardo. None of the participants who refused to administer the final
   shocks insisted that the experiment itself be terminated, nor left the
   room to check that the victim was well without asking for permission to
   leave, according to Milgram's notes and recollections when he was asked
   on this point by Zimbardo.

   Milgram created a documentary film titled Obedience showing the
   experiment and its results. He also produced a series of five other
   films on social psychology, some of which touched on his experiments.

Reactions

   Milgram's experiment raised questions about the ethics of scientific
   experimentation because of the extreme emotional stress suffered by the
   participants. In Milgram's defence, 84 percent of former participants
   surveyed later said they were "glad" or "very glad" to have
   participated and 15 percent chose neutral (92% of all former
   participants responding). Many later wrote expressing thanks. Milgram
   repeatedly received offers of assistance and requests to join his staff
   from former participants. Six years later (during the height of the
   Vietnam War), one of the participants in the experiment sent
   correspondence to Milgram, explaining why he was "glad" to have been
   involved despite the apparent levels of stress:

     While I was a subject [participant] in 1964, though I believed that
     I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so.
     Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own
     beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority. ... To
     permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am
     submitting to authority's demand to do something very wrong would
     make me frightened of myself. ... I am fully prepared to go to jail
     if I am not granted Conscientious Objector status. Indeed, it is the
     only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only
     hope is that members of my board act equally according to their
     conscience...

   However, not everyone went through the life-changing experience
   reported by some former participants. Participants were not fully
   debriefed by modern standards, and exit interviews appeared to indicate
   that many seemed to never fully understand the nature of the
   experiment.

   The experiments also raised criticism of a more emotional nature, which
   have more to do with the implications of the experiments than the
   ethicality of the setup. Joe Dimow, a participant in the 1961
   experiment at Yale, writes in Jewish Currents about his early
   withdrawal as a "teacher", suspicious "that the whole experiment was
   designed to see if ordinary Americans would obey immoral orders, as
   many Germans had done during the Nazi period". This was indeed one of
   the explicitly stated goals of the experiments. Quoting from the
   preface of Milgram's book, Obedience to Authority: "The question arises
   as to whether there is any connection between what we have studied in
   the laboratory and the forms of obedience we so deplored in the Nazi
   epoch."

Variations

   Milgram describes 19 variations of the experiment that he conducted in
   Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. In general, he found that
   when the immediacy of the victim was increased, compliance decreased,
   and when immediacy of the authority increased, compliance increased
   (Experiments 1–4). For instance, in one variation where participants
   received instructions from the experimenter only by telephone
   (Experiment 2), compliance decreased to 21 percent; interestingly, a
   number of participants deceived the experimenter by pretending to
   continue the experiment. In the variation where immediacy of the
   "learner" was closest, participants had to physically hold the
   learner's arm onto a shock plate, which decreased compliance. In this
   latter condition, 30 percent completed the experiment.

   In Experiment 8, women were used as participants (all of Milgram's
   other experiments used only men). Obedience did not differ
   significantly, though they indicated experiencing higher levels of
   stress.

   In one version (Experiment 10), Milgram rented a modest office in
   Bridgeport, Connecticut, purporting to be run by a commercial entity
   called "Research Associates of Bridgeport" with no apparent connection
   to Yale, in order to eliminate the prestige of the university as a
   possible factor influencing participants' behaviour. The results of
   this experiment did not greatly differ from those conducted at the Yale
   campus.

   Milgram also combined the power of authority with that of conformity.
   In these experiments, the participant was joined by one or two
   additional "teachers" (who were actually actors, like the "learner").
   The behaviour of the participants' apparent peers strongly affected
   results. When two additional teachers refused to comply (Experiment
   17), only four participants of 40 continued the experiment. In another
   version (Experiment 18), the participant performed a subsidiary task
   (such as reading the questions over the microphone or recording the
   learner's answers) with another "teacher" who complied fully. In this
   variation, only three of 40 defied the experimenter.

   Some recent variations upon Milgram's experiment have suggested an
   interpretation that requires neither obedience nor authority but
   suggest that Milgram's participants suffer from a specialised form of
   learned helplessness where they feel powerless to control the outcome
   and so abjugate their responsibility.

Real life examples

   Milgram's original experiment was performed in an attempt to understand
   why so many normal Germans went willingly along with Nazi
   experimentation.

   From April of 1995 until June 30th 2004, there were a series of hoaxes
   upon fast food workers in popular fast food chains in America in which
   authority figures were persuaded to strip and sexually abuse workers
   under the disguise of being a policeman. The perpetrator achieved a
   high level of success in persuading workers to perform acts which they
   would not have done under normal circumstances. (The chief suspect,
   David R. Stewart, was found not guilty in the only case that has gone
   to trial so far. )

In popular culture

   Variations on the Milgram experiment have pervaded the popular culture
   through film, TV and music. A partial list, arranged in chronological
   order of release:
     * The Tenth Level, was a 1975 TV dramatization of the experiment
       starring William Shatner, Ossie Davis, and John Travolta.
     * I comme Icare (English title: I as in Icarus), a 1979 movie by
       Henri Verneuil starring Yves Montand, contains a key scene where
       Milgram's experiment on obedience to authority is thoroughly
       explained and shown.
     * "Just A Job To Do" is a song recorded by Genesis on their 1983
       album " Genesis". Guitarist/writer Mike Rutherford once stated that
       the lyrics were inspired by Milgram's experiment.
     * The comic V for Vendetta (published from 1982 to 1985) refers to
       the Milgram experiment on page 73 of the first volume, and compares
       it to experiments performed on V and other human characters in the
       novel.
     * In 1984 film, Ghostbusters contains a scene introducing Bill
       Murray's character to the audience as a sly professor administering
       electrical shocks to a hapless college student while flirting with
       an attractive co-ed. In the commentary track of the DVD release of
       the film, Harold Ramis says that this parody was inspired by the
       Milgram Experiment, and that it was included in the film to test
       the limits of what the audience would be willing to accept from the
       film's hero.
     * "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)" is a Peter Gabriel song
       found on his 1986 album So. The title refers to the 37 out of 40
       participants who showed complete obedience in Experiment 18.
     * In the 90th episode of Malcolm in the Middle broadcast on November
       30, 2003 (Production Code: 06-03-505), Malcolm reveals humiliating
       secrets about his brother Reese for a school assignment by secretly
       videotaping conversations with him. His teacher Mr. Herkabe quotes
       the Milgram experiment after Malcolm has shown the video to his
       class.
     * Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, an Oscar-nominated
       documentary film directed by Alex Gibney and released in 2005,
       refers to the Milgram experiment as a rationale for the actions of
       Enron's line-level employees.
     * Alex Gibney also directed a documentary on Stanley Milgram, Phillip
       Zimbardo and the implications of their research, called The Human
       Behaviour Experiments, released in 2006.
     * In The Heist, a television show broadcast in the United Kingdom in
       2006, Derren Brown uses the experiment to select which participants
       will proceed to the next stage of being persuaded to perform an
       "armed robbery".
     * The award-winning short film Atrocity (2005) re-enacts Milgram's
       experiment.
     * The suspense novel Nagle's Mercy (published in 2006) refers to the
       Milgram Experiment on page 42.

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