The Milgram Experiment tested how people would follow instructions from an authority figure, even if morally dubious. Participants administered electric shocks to a “learner” despite their complaints of pain. 65% administered the maximum shock, but all expressed reservations. The experiment was controversial due to trauma and lack of informed consent.
The Milgram Experiment was a series of psychological experiments conducted at Yale University beginning in 1961. Stanley Milgram, the creator of the experiment, was inspired by recent Nazi war trials to test how well people would follow instructions of an authority figure, even when the instructions were morally dubious. Milgram published the results of the Milgram experiment in a 1963 paper, and later more extensively in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.
Participants in Milgram’s experiment were told it was for a study on the nature of learning. Test subjects were men between the ages of 20 and 50 with a variety of educational backgrounds. Both the person conducting the experiment and one of the two participants in each test were actors. The volunteer was told that he was randomly chosen as the ‘teacher’, while the other participant, actually an actor, was the ‘student’.
The volunteer was then instructed to ask the “learner” questions and to respond to each incorrect answer by administering an electric shock that increased in voltage each time. The “student” wasn’t actually shocked, but responded as if he was in serious pain and complained that he had a heart condition. If the volunteer expressed hesitation or concern for the ‘learner’, the experimenter strongly urged him to continue. If the volunteer continued the experiment, he was terminated after administering the maximum voltage of 450 volts three times.
The results of Milgram’s experiment surprised Milgram and his colleagues, who had assumed that very few people would go through with it. In fact, 65 percent administered the maximum shock and none stopped short of the 300-volt mark, even though participants were told they would receive payment whether or not the experiment was completed. On the other hand, every single participant in the Milgram experiment expressed reservations at some point, and many felt very uncomfortable.
Milgram’s experiment was controversial, firstly because some believed he was trying to apologize for the actions of the Nazis, and secondly because of the methods of the experiment. Many of the participants in Milgram’s experiment were traumatized and were not fully informed about their experience. The exit interviews suggest that many of the participants never understood the true purpose of the experiment. Eighty-four percent of attendees later reported that they were “delighted” or “very happy” to have attended, and some wrote that Milgram wrote personal letters of thanks, but this did not allay the concerns of those who felt the subjects of the Milgram experiment had been exploited and exposed to excessive stress.
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