How Far Will You Go to Obey an Authority Figure?

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In July of 1961, psychologist Stanley Milgram began a series of about twenty social psychology experiments designed to test the way people comply with authority (Davidson 2022)

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Milligram wanted to know how many people who were considered normal would continue to inflict pain on another person when told to do so by an authority figure.
He was inspired by the atrocities committed during World War II by seemingly average German citizens who were following the orders of their leaders.

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First Experiment (Davidson 2022):

one adult played the role of an emotionless authority figure, while an actor played the role of the learner. The experimental subjects, all men, were cast in the role of the teacher and instructed to deliver an electric shock to the learner for each mistake. The shocks started at 15 volts up to 450 volts. The teacher was given a 45-volt shock before the experiment began to experience what the learner would feel. The teacher and learner were placed in separate rooms so that they could hear but not see each other. The teacher would read a work and the learner would have to choose the correct word from a list of four. The authority figure reminded the teacher to shock the learner with a stronger shock each time a mistake was made. The teacher was unaware that the learner was an actor.

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Before the experiment, Milgram polled Yale psychology graduate students and faculty about what percentage of people they predicted would administer the highest level of shock.

65 percent of the 40 men administered the full range of shocks. Not one of the 40 men stopped before reaching 300 volts.

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Milgram designed about twenty variations of this experiment and this is what he learned (Davidson 2022):

🧪🧪Women were slightly more likely than men to complete the shock series.

🥼🥼More people completed the shock series when the authority figure was in the room.

🟦🟦Fewer teachers completed the series when they had to physically place the actor's arm on the shock device.

👀👀About 2/3 of the teachers completed the shock series regardless of their cultural background or gender.

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Milgram concluded that in a structured society, an innate need exists that causes one to obey authority regardless of one's cultural background and gender. He also concluded that when people have little information about a situation, they tend to comply thoughtlessly to the demands of authority.

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Milgram was criticized strongly for the psychological discomfort that he allowed the subjects to feel and was denied tenure at Harvard.

His later research produced the concept of "six degrees of separation"

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