_022 The Milgram Experiment

The Milgram experiment was conducted in 1963 by Stanley Milgram at Yale University. It focused on the conflict between obedience and inner morality. It aimed to answer the question: “How long will a person continue to harm another so long as they are told to do so?”

Milgram made an electric-shock generator with 30 switches. Each switch was labelled clearly, evenly distributed between 15 and 450 volts, accompanied by the intensity of the shock (Moderate to Strong to Severe to XXX). However, there were no real shocks and the generator simply produced a sound.

Each subject was told that their payment was just for showing up, and they could keep the money regardless of what happened upon arrival.

The subject met an Experimenter (who was leading the experiment) and another subject who was actually a confederate (pretending to be a subject but really in on it).

Both subjects  (real and confederate) drew slips of paper to indicate who was going to be a Teacher and who was going to be a Learner. This part was rigged so that the real subject would always be the Teacher.

The Teacher watched the Learner being strapped to a chair with electrodes attached. The Teacher was then sent to a different room with the shock generator, unable to see the Learner.

The Teacher was told to teach pairs of words to the Learner. Whenever the Learner made a mistake, the Teacher was told to punish the Learner by shocking them with a higher voltage each time.

The Learner was never actually shocked but rather each switch triggered a pre-taped audio clip and sometimes the Learner would bang against the wall between the two of them.

The Experimenter, who was in the same room as the Teacher, would answer any questions from the Teacher with set responses such as “Please continue”, “Please go on” or “The experiment requires that you go on” or “You have no other choice, you must go on”. This began with the mild responses and became increasingly authoritarian for each time the Teacher contacted him.

If the Teacher asked who was responsible if anything serious happened to the Learner, the Experimenter replied, “I am responsible”. Most of the time this relived the Teacher and they continued.

During the experiment, many Teachers displayed signs of tension. Three Teachers experienced “full-blown, uncontrollable seizures”. Despite being clearly uncomfortable with what they were doing, all the Teachers obeyed up to 300 volts. 25 out of the 40 Teachers continued to shock the Learner until 450 Volts

Before the experiment, it was estimated that about 3% of the subjects continue giving shocks all the way. They believed that only psychopaths would go so far as to do this.

However, almost 65 % continued giving shocks. They didn’t even stop when the Learner said he had heart-trouble. Ultimately, this suggests that in many situations we simply act as an instrument and not as a person, obeying authority despite conflict with our inner values.

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Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. Harpercollins.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378.