The Milgram Experiment

AIM
To see how obedient people would be in a situation where obeying orders would mean
breaking their moral code and hurting an innocent person.

PROCEDURE
Forty American men aged 20-50 were recruited by advertisement to participate in a
controlled experiment. They were told they were taking part in a ‘learning’ experiment
about the effects of punishment on learning and introduced to ‘Mr Wallace’, apparently a
fellow participant but actually a confederate working for Milgram. Participants drew straws
to determine their role of either learner or teacher, however, Milgram ensured that the real
participant was always the teacher, and the confederate was the learner.

Mr Wallace was then strapped into a chair behind a screen and connected to a shock
generator. The participant tested him on his memory for word pairs. The experimenter
(who wore a grey lab coat) ordered the participant playing the role of the teacher, to flick
a switch to give Mr Wallace a shock whenever he got an answer wrong or in the event
where he did not provide an answer. The shocks increased by 15 volts each time, up to a
maximum of 450 volts. Unknown to the participants, there were no real shocks. As the
level of shocks increased, Mr Wallace cried out and begged to be released. At 300 volts
he went silent apart from occasional weak knocking on the screen.

When participants protested at having to continue

shocking him, the experimenter gave them a
series of verbal prods, such as ‘’Please continue’
or ‘You have no choice, you must go on, the
experiment requires you to continue’’. The
percentage of participants who gave different
voltages was measured and the reactions of
participants were observed.

RESULTS
Sixty-five percent (two-thirds) of participants (i.e.,
teachers) continued to the highest level of 450
volts. All the participants continued to 300 volts.
Interestingly, prior to the experiment being
conducted, Milgram asked a group of Psychology
students, psychiatrists and colleagues to predict
participant obedience levels. The consensus was
that most participants would not obey and
therefore only a few would go to 150 volts with
approximately 4% predicted to keep going until
300 volts. They did not expect anyone to
administer the potential lethal level of 450 volts.
CONCLUSION
Milgram concluded that people have a strong tendency to obey orders even when these
go against their morals. This effect is so powerful that most people will injure or kill a
stranger when ordered to by a figure in authority. This means that the many crimes
against humanity may be the outcome of situational factors* rather than dispositional
factors**.

It appears that an individual’s capacity for making independent decisions is suspended

when they find themselves in a subordinate position within a powerful social hierarchy (in
this case the relationship with the experimenter).

*Situational factors
include those elements in our environment that can influence our behaviour and include
work, school, and the people around you.

**Dispositional factors
are often referred as internal factors and include personal qualities that we have little
control over. Such factors may include, but are not limited to, genetic predispositions,
personality traits, intelligence and levels of self esteem.