Good morning and Happy Sunday!
Today I want to talk about one of the most controversial psychological experiments that brought forward a crucial finding on the nature of human behavior.
This experiment has come to be known as the Milgram experiment. It was conducted by Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist from Yale University, in the 1960s. It aimed to find out the degree of obedience of a person to follow an order under the power of an authority figure. Now you might ask, ‘Why is this controversial?’ We’ll get to that soon.
The motivation for this study was the post-World War II scenario. During the trials of Nazi war criminals, a common explanation provided for the killings was that the war criminals had no other option but to obey their authority figures.
This intrigued Milgram and he set out to study whether ordinary, even likable and kind people will also commit atrocities against other humans when put under the pressure of authority figures.
A total of 40 men participated in the study, all from different occupations. They would be playing the role of a ‘teacher’ by asking their ‘student’ participant to recall some words from a list that was provided before.
The ‘learner’ participant was made to sit opposite to the ‘teacher’ participant with a barricade in between, they were then strapped to an “electric chair” with an electrode attached to their wrist, which was further attached to a shock generator.
The ‘teacher’ participants were instructed by a stern and expressionless authority figure in a white coat to administer electrical shocks to the ‘learner’ if they provide incorrect answers. Starting at 15 volts, every incorrect answer would increase the shock level by another 15 volts.
Here’s the catch:
The ‘learner’ participant was actually a stooge, meaning, a person who is secretly working for the researcher, unknown to the actual participants of the study. The ‘learner’ played the role of a very likable accountant, Mr. Wallace, also very good at acting as if he was in excruciating pain. The stern and expressionless authority figure in a white coat was also a stooge. Needless to say, no electrical shocks were actually administered.
Now back to the experiment,
After every incorrect answer, the ‘teacher’ would administer an electric shock on the ‘learner’ and the ‘learner’ would react by flinching at first, then gradually shouting, screaming, pounding on the wall barricade, reacting more frantically, and then finally, ceasing to make any noise at all, which would be considered as an incorrect answer and the ‘teacher’ would be instructed to administer another shock.
The stern and expressionless authority figure in a white coat would only encourage the ‘teacher’ to continue asking questions and administering the shocks with verbal prods like- “You are required to continue” and “You have no other choice but to continue”. If they didn’t, the experiment was terminated.
“Crazy”, you’d say, “No one would actually keep administering shocks after hearing someone scream” (Half-expecting you to say this), but the results were stupefying.
100% of the ‘teachers’ went on to administer 300 volts shocks to the ‘learner’. That was the point where the learner began to shout in apparent pain.
35% of the ‘teachers’ administered shocks of 300 to 375 volts but refused to administer them any further.
But 65% of the ‘teachers’ continued the experiment to the end and ended up administering a maximum shock of 450 volts as many times as requested.
Not without any side effects though. All the ‘teachers’ showed discomfort through severe distress, tension, nervousness, stuttering, trembling, sweating, and 3 people even had full-blown seizures.
This experiment brought forward an important truth- People will obey authority figures even at the risk of violating their own morals, and getting negatively physically and emotionally affected because the pressure to comply seems simply too powerful to defy.
“Obedience to authority is not a feature of German culture, but a seemingly universal feature of human behavior” -Stanley Milgram
This universal feature, he says, comes from the fact that we are socialized to be obedient and follow orders from a very young age, especially the rules that are set by authority figures.
It supports the theory of Conformism which states that “when a person has neither the ability nor the expertise to make a decision, he will look to the group to decide how to behave.”
As I mentioned in the beginning, the study was highly controversial. One, because it contained a high level of deception of the participants (that the ‘learner’ was being shocked), and two, because it produced a number of negative psychological effects on the participants. Milgram’s defense to this was that realistic results would not be obtained if no deception was employed. Furthermore, every participant was debriefed, made sure that they had not been emotionally scarred by the experience, and were also reunited with the ‘learner’, Mr. Wallace, so that they could see that no real harm had been done.
This was one of the crucial studies that developed the ethical standards of psychological experimentation.
The study was highly criticized at the time for another reason- it was easier to believe that Nazis and the rest of humanity are fundamentally different than to accept that in situations of extreme pressure, almost all of us are capable of committing extraordinary acts of violence against each other.
Another significant conclusion that Milgram drew is that “Instead of examining personalities to explain crimes, we should examine the context or situation”.
Instead of asking you to think consciously about something, I simply want to let these thoughts brew in your mind today.
Come back and let me know what you think of the experiment and how it asks of us to understand each other better.
In professional life I do see certain circumstances when you follow orders of the seniors in spite of the fact that you disagree to them personally. As you have rightly said every person obeys upto their personal limit of tolerance. Infact each person must maintain their ethical values and not stretch beyond.
This was an interesting post. This very much reminds me how Pandava were the only heroes. If I say more, I might get in trouble so gonna shut up 😅