milgram experiment impact

Stanley Milgram Shock Experiment

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

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Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, carried out one of the most famous studies of obedience in psychology.

He conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience.

Milgram (1963) examined justifications for acts of genocide offered by those accused at the World War II, Nuremberg War Criminal trials. Their defense often was based on obedience  – that they were just following orders from their superiors.

The experiments began in July 1961, a year after the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiment to answer the question:

Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?” (Milgram, 1974).

Milgram (1963) wanted to investigate whether Germans were particularly obedient to authority figures, as this was a common explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II.

Milgram’s Experiment (1963)

The study was designed to measure how far participants would go in obeying an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.

Specifically, it aimed to quantify the level of shock participants were willing to administer to another person under the guise of a learning experiment when instructed to do so by an authority figure.

Milgram also investigated the conditions under which people obey or disobey authority and the psychological mechanisms (reasons) behind obedience and disobedience.

• Size : The study involved 40 male participants aged between 20 and 50 years.
• Method : Participants were recruited through newspaper advertisements and direct mail solicitation. All subjects believed they were voluntarily participating in a study on memory and learning at Yale University. This method is known as volunteer or self-selecting sampling.
• Demographics: Participants were drawn from New Haven and surrounding communities. The sample included a wide range of occupations, including postal clerks, high school teachers, salesmen, engineers, and laborers. Participants ranged in educational level from those who had not finished elementary school to those with doctorate and other professional degrees.
• Compensation : Participants were paid $4.50 for their participation in the experiment. However, they were told that the payment was simply for coming to the laboratory, regardless of what happened after they arrived.

The procedure involved pairing participants with a confederate (Mr. Wallace), assigning roles through a rigged draw, and setting up a scenario where the participant (always the teacher) was instructed to administer electric shocks to the confederate (learner) for incorrect answers to a memory task.

• The participant and the confederate drew slips from a hat to determine their roles.
• The drawing was rigged so that both slips contained the word “Teacher.”
• The ‘true’ participant was always first to choose.
• This ensured that the naive subject (real participant) was always assigned the role of teacher, while the confederate was always the learner.

Before ‘drawing lots’ to decide who became the teacher and who became the learner Milgram told the participants about the effects of punishment on learning:

We know very little about the effects of punishment on learning. This is because almost no scientific studies have been conducted (on human beings). We don’t know how much punishment is best for learning/whether it is beneficial to learning; We also don’t know how much difference it makes as to who is giving the punishment: So in this study, we are bringing together people from different occupations (to test this out); We want to know what effect different people have on each other as teachers and learners.

The learner (Mr. Wallace) was taken into a room and strapped into an electric chair apparatus.

The teacher (real participant) and experimenter (a confederate called Mr. William) went into a separate room next door that contained an electric shock generator.

The ‘Learning Task’

The teacher real participant) was given a preliminary series of 10 words to read to the learner (confederate), with 7 predetermined wrong answers, reaching 105 volts.

After the practice round, a second list was given, and the teacher was told to repeat the procedure until all word pairs were learned correctly.

The participant (teacher) read a second list of word pairs to the learner. The participant then read one word from each pair and provided four possible options for the matching word.

The learner had to indicate which word had been originally paired with the first word by pressing one of four switches.

This task served as the pretext for administering shocks, allowing the experimenters to study obedience to authority in a controlled setting.

Each incorrect answer resulted in a shock, while a correct answer moved the process to the next word.

Fake Shock Generator

The shocks in Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments were not real. The “learners” were actors who were part of the experiment and did not actually receive any shocks.

However, the “teachers” (the real participants of the study) believed the shocks were real, which was crucial for the experiment to measure obedience to authority figures even when it involved causing harm to others.

The participant was given a mild electric shock of 45v to the wrist to convince them that the shocks were genuine. Milgram watched through a one-way mirror. 

• The device consisted of 30 lever switches or bttons.
• Each switch was clearly labeled with a voltage level.
• The voltage range spanned from 15 volts to 450 volts.
• The voltage increased by 15-volt increments between each switch.
• When a switch was pressed, a red light would illuminate, an electric buzzing sound was emitted, and a blue light labeled “voltage energizer” would light up.
• The voltage levels were labeled from “Slight Shock” to “XXX”.

Learner (confederate)

The learner (Mr. Wallace) was a confederate (stooge) who pretended to be a real participant. He was 47 years old, mild-minded, Irish-American, and was an accountant in real life.

The learner was taken into a separate room and strapped into an electric chair apparatus. He had electrodes attached to his wrist with paste (to avoid blistering). The experimenter explained that the straps were to prevent excessive movement.

The learner’s responses were predetermined, with a schedule of approximately three wrong answers to one correct answer. This standardized protocal was used for all 40 participants.

The learner continued to provide answers (mostly incorrect) up until the 300v shock, and makes noises of pain when he receives a shock. 

When the 300v shock is administered, the learner pounds on the room’s wall, which is heard by the participant.

The learner stops responding to the questions after receiving the 300v shock.

After getting the 315v shock, the pounding is repeated and afterward, no response appears for the questions, and he is not heard from.

Experimenter (confederate authority figure)

There was also an “experimenter” dressed in a gray lab coat, played by an actor (a 31-year-old male school biology teacher in a coat called ‘Mr. William’. He wore a grey technician coat and had a stern manner).

The experimenter (Mr. Williams) instructs the teacher (real participant) to administer an electric shock each time the learner makes a mistake, increasing the shock level by 15 volts with each error.

He advises the participants to allow 5-10 seconds before considering no response as a wrong answer, and to increase the shock level one step each time the learner fails to respond correctly. The participant gave the shock by pressing a button on the shock generator.

Additionally, the experimenter tells the teacher to announce the voltage level before administering each shock.

When the teacher refused to administer a shock, the experimenter (Mr. Williams) instructed a series of standardized orders/prods to ensure they continued.

There were four standardized, scripted prods, and if one was not obeyed, then the experimenter (Mr. Williams) read out the next prod, and so on.

If a prod was unsuccessful or the participant insisted on stopping, the experimenter moved on to the next one, and so on.

The tone was firm but not impolite. The prods were repeated if the participant showed reluctance to continue.

• Prod 1 : Please continue / please go on.
• Prod 2: The experiment requires you to continue.
• Prod 3 : It is absolutely essential that you continue.
• Prod 4 : You have no other choice but to continue.

These prods were to be used in order, and begun afresh for each new attempt at defiance (Milgram, 1974, p. 21).

If the final prod was unsuccessful or the participant stopped reading words, the study ended.

There were special prods if physical injury was asked about;

• Although the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage, so please go on.
• Whether the learner likes it or not, you must go on until he has learned all the word pairs correctly. So please go on.
• 65% (two-thirds) of participants (i.e., teachers) continued to the highest level of 450 volts. All the participants continued to 300 volts.
• 14 defiant participants stopped early: 5 stopped at 300v, 4 at 315v, 2 at 330v, and 1 each at 345v, 360v, and 375v.
• Milgram did more than one experiment – he carried out 18 variations of his study.  All he did was alter the situation (IV) to see how this affected obedience (DV).

Additional results:

• Participants often showed signs of extreme tension, including sweating, biting their lips, trembling, stuttering, digging nails into their flesh, and nervous laughter.
• Some participants exhibited full-blown, uncontrollable seizures of laughter.
• In the post-experimental interview, subjects rated the pain of the last few shocks on a 14-point scale. The modal response was 14 (Extremely painful) with a mean of 13.42.

Conclusion 

• People appear to be more obedient to authority figures than we might expect. Ordinary individuals are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of potentially causing harm to an innocent human being.
• When people are given orders to act destructively they will experience high levels of stress and anxiety.
• People are willing to harm someone if responsibility is taken away and passed on to someone else.

Situational factors affected obedience:

The individual explanation for the behavior of the participants would be that it was something about them as people that caused them to obey, but a more realistic explanation is that the situation they were in influenced them and caused them to behave in the way that they did.

Some aspects of the situation that may have influenced their behavior include the formality of the location, the behavior of the experimenter, and the fact that it was an experiment for which they had volunteered and been paid.

• Institutional authority : The experiment’s association with Yale University lent it significant credibility and legitimacy.
• Authoritative uniform: The experimenter wore a gray technician’s lab coat portraying authority and scientific status.
• Buffers from the consequences: The physical separation from the learner reduced the emotional impact of the participants’ actions.
• Divided responsibility : The presence of the experimenter allowed participants to feel they were not solely responsible for their actions.
• Gradual nature of the task : The incremental increase in shock intensity made it harder for participants to determine a clear point to refuse.
• Limited time for reflection : The rapid progression of events gave participants little opportunity to carefully consider their actions.
• Contractual obligation : Having agreed to participate, subjects felt a commitment to see the experiment through.

People tend to obey orders from other people if they recognize their authority as morally right and/or legally based. This response to legitimate authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family, school, and workplace.

Milgram summed up in the article “The Perils of Obedience” (Milgram 1974), writing:

“The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’ [participants’] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects’ [participants’] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.”

Milgram’s Agency Theory

Milgram (1974) explained the behavior of his participants by suggesting that people have two states of behavior when they are in a social situation:

• The autonomous state – people direct their own actions, and they take responsibility for the results of those actions.
• The agentic state – people allow others to direct their actions and then pass off the responsibility for the consequences to the person giving the orders. In other words, they act as agents for another person’s will.

Milgram suggested that two things must be in place for a person to enter the agentic state:

• The person giving the orders is perceived as being qualified to direct other people’s behavior. That is, they are seen as legitimate.
• The person being ordered about is able to believe that the authority will accept responsibility for what happens.

According to Milgram, when in this agentic state, the participant in the obedience studies “defines himself in a social situation in a manner that renders him open to regulation by a person of higher status. In this condition the individual no longer views himself as responsible for his own actions but defines himself as an instrument for carrying out the wishes of others” (Milgram, 1974, p. 134).

Agency theory says that people will obey an authority when they believe that the authority will take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. This is supported by some aspects of Milgram’s evidence.

For example, when participants were reminded that they had responsibility for their own actions, almost none of them were prepared to obey.

In contrast, many participants who were refusing to go on did so if the experimenter said that he would take responsibility.

According to Milgram (1974, p. 188):

“The behavior revealed in the experiments reported here is normal human behavior but revealed under conditions that show with particular clarity the danger to human survival inherent in our make-up.

And what is it we have seen? Not aggression, for there is no anger, vindictiveness, or hatred in those who shocked the victim….

Something far more dangerous is revealed: the capacity for man to abandon his humanity, indeed, the inevitability that he does so, as he merges his unique personality into larger institutional structures.”

Milgram Experiment Variations

The Milgram experiment was carried out many times whereby Milgram (1965) varied the basic procedure (changed the IV).  By doing this Milgram could identify which factors affected obedience (the DV).

Obedience was measured by how many participants shocked to the maximum 450 volts (65% in the original study). Stanley Milgram conducted a total of 23 variations (also called conditions or experiments) of his original obedience study:

In total, 636 participants were tested in 18 variation studies conducted between 1961 and 1962 at Yale University.

In the original baseline study – the experimenter wore a gray lab coat to symbolize his authority (a kind of uniform).

The lab coat worn by the experimenter in the original study served as a crucial symbol of scientific authority that increased obedience. The lab coat conveyed expertise and legitimacy, making participants see the experimenter as more credible and trustworthy.

Milgram carried out a variation in which the experimenter was called away because of a phone call right at the start of the procedure.

The role of the experimenter was then taken over by an ‘ordinary member of the public’ ( a confederate) in everyday clothes rather than a lab coat. The obedience level dropped to 20%.

Change of Location:  The Mountain View Facility Study (1963, unpublished)

Milgram conducted this variation in a set of offices in a rundown building, claiming it was associated with “Research Associates of Bridgeport” rather than Yale.

The lab’s ordinary appearance was designed to test if Yale’s prestige encouraged obedience. Participants were led to believe that a private research firm experimented.

In this non-university setting, obedience rates dropped to 47.5% compared to 65% in the original Yale experiments. This suggests that the status of location affects obedience.

Private research firms are viewed as less prestigious than certain universities, which affects behavior. It is easier under these conditions to abandon the belief in the experimenter’s essential decency.

The impressive university setting reinforced the experimenter’s authority and conveyed an implicit approval of the research.

Milgram filmed this variation for his documentary Obedience , but did not publish the results in his academic papers. The study only came to wider light when archival materials, including his notes, films, and data, were studied by later researchers like Perry (2013) in the decades after Milgram’s death.

Two Teacher Condition

When participants could instruct an assistant (confederate) to press the switches, 92.5% shocked to the maximum of 450 volts.

Allowing the participant to instruct an assistant to press the shock switches diffused personal responsibility and likely reduced perceptions of causing direct harm.

By attributing the actions to the assistant rather than themselves, participants could more easily justify shocking to the maximum 450 volts, reflected in the 92.5% obedience rate.

When there is less personal responsibility, obedience increases. This relates to Milgram’s Agency Theory.

Touch Proximity Condition

The teacher had to force the learner’s hand down onto a shock plate when the learner refused to participate after 150 volts. Obedience fell to 30%.

Forcing the learner’s hand onto the shock plate after 150 volts physically connected the teacher to the consequences of their actions. This direct tactile feedback increased the teacher’s personal responsibility.

No longer shielded from the learner’s reactions, the proximity enabled participants to more clearly perceive the harm they were causing, reducing obedience to 30%. Physical distance and indirect actions in the original setup made it easier to rationalize obeying the experimenter.

The participant is no longer buffered/protected from seeing the consequences of their actions.

Social Support Condition

When the two confederates set an example of defiance by refusing to continue the shocks, especially early on at 150 volts, it permitted the real participant also to resist authority.

Two other participants (confederates) were also teachers but refused to obey. Confederate 1 stopped at 150 volts, and Confederate 2 stopped at 210 volts.

Their disobedience provided social proof that it was acceptable to disobey. This modeling of defiance lowered obedience to only 10% compared to 65% without such social support. It demonstrated that social modeling can validate challenging authority.

The presence of others who are seen to disobey the authority figure reduces the level of obedience to 10%.

Absent Experimenter Condition 

It is easier to resist the orders from an authority figure if they are not close by. When the experimenter instructed and prompted the teacher by telephone from another room, obedience fell to 20.5%.

Many participants cheated and missed out on shocks or gave less voltage than ordered by the experimenter. The proximity of authority figures affects obedience.

The physical absence of the authority figure enabled participants to act more freely on their own moral inclinations rather than the experimenter’s commands. This highlighted the role of an authority’s direct presence in influencing behavior.

A key reason the obedience studies fascinate people is Milgram presented them as a scientific experiment, contrasting himself as an “empirically grounded scientist” compared to philosophers. He claimed he systematically varied factors to alter obedience rates.

However, recent scholarship using archival records shows Milgram’s account of standardizing the procedure was misleading. For example, he published a list of standardized prods the experimenter used when participants questioned continuing. Milgram said these were delivered uniformly in a firm but polite tone.

Analyzing audiotapes, Gibson (2013) found considerable variation from the published protocol – the prods differed across trials. The point is not that Milgram did poor science, but that the archival materials reveal the limitations of the textbook account of his “standardized” procedure.

The qualitative data like participant feedback, Milgram’s notes, and researchers’ actions provide a fuller, messier picture than the obedience studies’ “official” story. For psychology students, this shows how scientific reporting can polish findings in a way that strays from the less tidy reality.

Critical Evaluation

Inaccurate description of the prod methodology:.

A key reason obedience studies fascinate people is Milgram (1974) presented them as a scientific experiment, contrasting himself as an “empirically grounded scientist” compared to philosophers. He claimed he systematically varied factors to alter obedience rates.

However, recent scholarship using archival records shows Milgram’s account of standardizing the procedure was misleading. For example, he published a list of standardized prods the experimenter used when participants questioned continuing. Milgram said these were delivered uniformly in a firm but polite tone (Gibson, 2013; Perry, 2013; Russell, 2010).

Perry’s (2013) archival research revealed another discrepancy between Milgram’s published account and the actual events. Milgram claimed standardized prods were used when participants resisted, but Perry’s audiotape analysis showed the experimenter often improvised more coercive prods beyond the supposed script.

This off-script prodding varied between experiments and participants, and was especially prevalent with female participants where no gender obedience difference was found – suggesting the improvisation influenced results. Gibson (2013) and Russell (2009) corroborated the experimenter’s departures from the supposed fixed prods. 

Prods were often combined or modified rather than used verbatim as published.

Russell speculated the improvisation aimed to achieve outcomes the experimenter believed Milgram wanted. Milgram seemed to tacitly approve of the deviations by not correcting them when observing.

This raises significant issues around experimenter bias influencing results, lack of standardization compromising validity, and ethical problems with Milgram misrepresenting procedures.

Milgram’s experiment lacked external validity:

The Milgram studies were conducted in laboratory-type conditions, and we must ask if this tells us much about real-life situations.

We obey in a variety of real-life situations that are far more subtle than instructions to give people electric shocks, and it would be interesting to see what factors operate in everyday obedience. The sort of situation Milgram investigated would be more suited to a military context.

Orne and Holland (1968) accused Milgram’s study of lacking ‘experimental realism,”’ i.e.,” participants might not have believed the experimental set-up they found themselves in and knew the learner wasn’t receiving electric shocks.

“It’s more truthful to say that only half of the people who undertook the experiment fully believed it was real, and of those two-thirds disobeyed the experimenter,” observes Perry (p. 139).

Milgram’s sample was biased:

• The participants in Milgram’s study were all male. Do the findings transfer to females?
• Milgram’s study cannot be seen as representative of the American population as his sample was self-selected. This is because they became participants only by electing to respond to a newspaper advertisement (selecting themselves).
• They may also have a typical “volunteer personality” – not all the newspaper readers responded so perhaps it takes this personality type to do so.

Yet a total of 636 participants were tested in 18 separate experiments across the New Haven area, which was seen as being reasonably representative of a typical American town.

Milgram’s findings have been replicated in a variety of cultures and most lead to the same conclusions as Milgram’s original study and in some cases see higher obedience rates.

However, Smith and Bond (1998) point out that with the exception of Jordan (Shanab & Yahya, 1978), the majority of these studies have been conducted in industrialized Western cultures, and we should be cautious before we conclude that a universal trait of social behavior has been identified.

Selective reporting of experimental findings:

Perry (2013) found Milgram omitted findings from some obedience experiments he conducted, reporting only results supporting his conclusions. A key omission was the Relationship condition (conducted in 1962 but unpublished), where participant pairs were relatives or close acquaintances.

When the learner protested being shocked, most teachers disobeyed, contradicting Milgram’s emphasis on obedience to authority.

Perry argued Milgram likely did not publish this 85% disobedience rate because it undermined his narrative and would be difficult to defend ethically since the teacher and learner knew each other closely.

Milgram’s selective reporting biased interpretations of his findings. His failure to publish all his experiments raises issues around researchers’ ethical obligation to completely and responsibly report their results, not just those fitting their expectations.

Unreported analysis of participants’ skepticism and its impact on their behavior:

Perry (2013) found archival evidence that many participants expressed doubt about the experiment’s setup, impacting their behavior. This supports Orne and Holland’s (1968) criticism that Milgram overlooked participants’ perceptions.

Incongruities like apparent danger, but an unconcerned experimenter likely cued participants that no real harm would occur. Trust in Yale’s ethics reinforced this. Yet Milgram did not publish his assistant’s analysis showing participant skepticism correlated with disobedience rates and varied by condition.

Obedient participants were more skeptical that the learner was harmed. This selective reporting biased interpretations. Additional unreported findings further challenge Milgram’s conclusions.

This highlights issues around thoroughly and responsibly reporting all results, not just those fitting expectations. It shows how archival evidence makes Milgram’s study a contentious classic with questionable methods and conclusions.

Ethical Issues

What are the potential ethical concerns associated with Milgram’s research on obedience?

While not a “contribution to psychology” in the traditional sense, Milgram’s obedience experiments sparked significant debate about the ethics of psychological research.

Baumrind (1964) criticized the ethics of Milgram’s research as participants were prevented from giving their informed consent to take part in the study. 

Participants assumed the experiment was benign and expected to be treated with dignity.

As a result of studies like Milgram’s, the APA and BPS now require researchers to give participants more information before they agree to take part in a study.

The participants actually believed they were shocking a real person and were unaware the learner was a confederate of Milgram’s.

However, Milgram argued that “illusion is used when necessary in order to set the stage for the revelation of certain difficult-to-get-at-truths.”

Milgram also interviewed participants afterward to find out the effect of the deception. Apparently, 83.7% said that they were “glad to be in the experiment,” and 1.3% said that they wished they had not been involved.

Protection of participants 

Participants were exposed to extremely stressful situations that may have the potential to cause psychological harm. Many of the participants were visibly distressed (Baumrind, 1964).

Signs of tension included trembling, sweating, stuttering, laughing nervously, biting lips and digging fingernails into palms of hands. Three participants had uncontrollable seizures, and many pleaded to be allowed to stop the experiment.

Milgram described a businessman reduced to a “twitching stuttering wreck” (1963, p. 377),

In his defense, Milgram argued that these effects were only short-term. Once the participants were debriefed (and could see the confederate was OK), their stress levels decreased.

“At no point,” Milgram (1964) stated, “were subjects exposed to danger and at no point did they run the risk of injurious effects resulting from participation” (p. 849).

To defend himself against criticisms about the ethics of his obedience research, Milgram cited follow-up survey data showing that 84% of participants said they were glad they had taken part in the study.

Milgram used this to claim that the study caused no serious or lasting harm, since most participants retrospectively did not regret their involvement.

Yet archival accounts show many participants endured lasting distress, even trauma, refuting Milgram’s insistence the study caused only fleeting “excitement.” By not debriefing all, Milgram misled participants about the true risks involved (Perry, 2013).

However, Milgram did debrief the participants fully after the experiment and also followed up after a period of time to ensure that they came to no harm.

Milgram debriefed all his participants straight after the experiment and disclosed the true nature of the experiment.

Participants were assured that their behavior was common, and Milgram also followed the sample up a year later and found no signs of any long-term psychological harm.

The majority of the participants (83.7%) said that they were pleased that they had participated, and 74% had learned something of personal importance.

Perry’s (2013) archival research found Milgram misrepresented debriefing – around 600 participants were not properly debriefed soon after the study, contrary to his claims. Many only learned no real shocks occurred when reading a mailed study report months later, which some may have not received.

Milgram likely misreported debriefing details to protect his credibility and enable future obedience research. This raises issues around properly informing and debriefing participants that connect to APA ethics codes developed partly in response to Milgram’s study.

Right to Withdrawal 

The British Psychological Society (BPS) states that researchers should make it plain to participants that they are free to withdraw at any time (regardless of payment).

When expressing doubts, the experimenter assured them that all was well. Trusting Yale scientists, many took the experimenter at his word that “no permanent tissue damage” would occur, and continued administering shocks despite reservations.

Did Milgram give participants an opportunity to withdraw? The experimenter gave four verbal prods which mostly discouraged withdrawal from the experiment:

• Please continue.
• The experiment requires that you continue.
• It is absolutely essential that you continue.
• You have no other choice, you must go on.

Milgram argued that they were justified as the study was about obedience, so orders were necessary.

Milgram pointed out that although the right to withdraw was made partially difficult, it was possible as 35% of participants had chosen to withdraw.

Replications

Direct replications have not been possible due to current ethical standards .

However, several researchers have conducted partial replications and variations that aim to reproduce some aspects of Milgram’s methods ethically.

One important replication was conducted by Jerry Burger in 2009. Burger’s partial replication included several safeguards to protect participant welfare, such as screening out high-risk individuals, repeatedly reminding participants they could withdraw, and stopping at the 150-volt shock level. This was the point where Milgram’s participants first heard the learner’s protests.

As 79% of Milgram’s participants who went past 150 volts continued to the maximum 450 volts, Burger (2009) argued that 150 volts provided a reasonable estimate for obedience levels. He found 70% of participants continued to 150 volts, compared to 82.5% in Milgram’s comparable condition.

Another replication by Thomas Blass (1999) examined whether obedience rates had declined over time due to greater public awareness of the experiments.

Blass correlated obedience rates from replication studies between 1963 and 1985 and found no relationship between year and obedience level. He concluded that obedience rates have not systematically changed, providing evidence against the idea of “enlightenment effects”.

Some variations have explored the role of gender. Milgram found equal rates of obedience for male and female participants. Reviews have found most replications also show no gender difference, with a couple of exceptions (Blass, 1999). For example, Kilham and Mann (1974) found lower obedience in female participants.

Partial replications have also examined situational factors. Having another person model defiance reduced obedience compared to a solo participant in one study, but did not eliminate it (Burger, 2009).

The authority figure’s perceived expertise seems to be an influential factor (Blass, 1999). Replications have supported Milgram’s observation that stepwise increases in demands promote obedience.

Personality factors have been studied as well. Traits like high empathy and desire for control correlate with some minor early hesitation, but do not greatly impact eventual obedience levels (Burger, 2009). Authoritarian tendencies may contribute to obedience (Elms, 2009).

In sum, the partial replications confirm Milgram’s degree of obedience. Though ethical constraints prevent full reproductions, the key elements of his procedure seem to consistently elicit high levels of compliance across studies, samples, and eras. The replications continue to highlight the power of situational pressures to yield obedience.

Milgram (1963) Audio Clips

Below you can also hear some of the audio clips taken from the video that was made of the experiment. Just click on the clips below.

Why was the Milgram experiment so controversial?

The Milgram experiment was controversial because it revealed people’s willingness to obey authority figures even when causing harm to others, raising ethical concerns about the psychological distress inflicted upon participants and the deception involved in the study.

Would Milgram’s experiment be allowed today?

Milgram’s experiment would likely not be allowed today in its original form, as it violates modern ethical guidelines for research involving human participants, particularly regarding informed consent, deception, and protection from psychological harm.

Did anyone refuse the Milgram experiment?

Yes, in the Milgram experiment, some participants refused to continue administering shocks, demonstrating individual variation in obedience to authority figures. In the original Milgram experiment, approximately 35% of participants refused to administer the highest shock level of 450 volts, while 65% obeyed and delivered the 450-volt shock.

How can Milgram’s study be applied to real life?

Milgram’s study can be applied to real life by demonstrating the potential for ordinary individuals to obey authority figures even when it involves causing harm, emphasizing the importance of questioning authority, ethical decision-making, and fostering critical thinking in societal contexts.

Were all participants in Milgram’s experiments male?

Yes, in the original Milgram experiment conducted in 1961, all participants were male, limiting the generalizability of the findings to women and diverse populations.

Why was the Milgram experiment unethical?

The Milgram experiment was considered unethical because participants were deceived about the true nature of the study and subjected to severe emotional distress. They believed they were causing harm to another person under the instruction of authority.

Additionally, participants were not given the right to withdraw freely and were subjected to intense pressure to continue. The psychological harm and lack of informed consent violates modern ethical guidelines for research.

Baumrind, D. (1964). Some thoughts on ethics of research: After reading Milgram’s” Behavioral study of obedience.”.  American Psychologist ,  19 (6), 421.

Blass, T. (1999). The Milgram paradigm after 35 years: Some things we now know about obedience to authority 1.  Journal of Applied Social Psychology ,  29 (5), 955-978.

Brannigan, A., Nicholson, I., & Cherry, F. (2015). Introduction to the special issue: Unplugging the Milgram machine.  Theory & Psychology ,  25 (5), 551-563.

Burger, J. M. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today? American Psychologist, 64 , 1–11.

Elms, A. C. (2009). Obedience lite. American Psychologist, 64 (1), 32–36.

Gibson, S. (2013). Milgram’s obedience experiments: A rhetorical analysis. British Journal of Social Psychology, 52, 290–309.

Gibson, S. (2017). Developing psychology’s archival sensibilities: Revisiting Milgram’s obedience’ experiments.  Qualitative Psychology ,  4 (1), 73.

Griggs, R. A., Blyler, J., & Jackson, S. L. (2020). Using research ethics as a springboard for teaching Milgram’s obedience study as a contentious classic.  Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology ,  6 (4), 350.

Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2018). A truth that does not always speak its name: How Hollander and Turowetz’s findings confirm and extend the engaged followership analysis of harm-doing in the Milgram paradigm. British Journal of Social Psychology, 57, 292–300.

Haslam, S. A., Reicher, S. D., & Birney, M. E. (2016). Questioning authority: New perspectives on Milgram’s ‘obedience’ research and its implications for intergroup relations. Current Opinion in Psychology, 11 , 6–9.

Haslam, S. A., Reicher, S. D., Birney, M. E., Millard, K., & McDonald, R. (2015). ‘Happy to have been of service’: The Yale archive as a window into the engaged followership of participants in Milgram’s ‘obedience’ experiment. British Journal of Social Psychology, 54 , 55–83.

Kaplan, D. E. (1996). The Stanley Milgram papers: A case study on appraisal of and access to confidential data files. American Archivist, 59 , 288–297.

Kaposi, D. (2022). The second wave of critical engagement with Stanley Milgram’s ‘obedience to authority’experiments: What did we learn?.  Social and Personality Psychology Compass ,  16 (6), e12667.

Kilham, W., & Mann, L. (1974). Level of destructive obedience as a function of transmitter and executant roles in the Milgram obedience paradigm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29 (5), 696–702.

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

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

Miller, A. G. (2009). Reflections on” Replicating Milgram”(Burger, 2009), American Psychologis t, 64 (1):20-27

Nicholson, I. (2011). “Torture at Yale”: Experimental subjects, laboratory torment and the “rehabilitation” of Milgram’s “obedience to authority”. Theory & Psychology, 21 , 737–761.

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Perry, G. (2013). Behind the shock machine: The untold story of the notorious Milgram psychology experiments . New York, NY: The New Press.

Reicher, S., Haslam, A., & Miller, A. (Eds.). (2014). Milgram at 50: Exploring the enduring relevance of psychology’s most famous studies [Special issue]. Journal of Social Issues, 70 (3), 393–602

Russell, N. (2014). Stanley Milgram’s obedience to authority “relationship condition”: Some methodological and theoretical implications. Social Sciences, 3, 194–214

Shanab, M. E., & Yahya, K. A. (1978). A cross-cultural study of obedience. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society .

Smith, P. B., & Bond, M. H. (1998). Social psychology across cultures (2nd Edition) . Prentice Hall.

Further Reading

• The power of the situation: The impact of Milgram’s obedience studies on personality and social psychology
• Seeing is believing: The role of the film Obedience in shaping perceptions of Milgram’s Obedience to Authority Experiments
• Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today?

Learning Check

Which is true regarding the Milgram obedience study?

• The aim was to see how obedient people would be in a situation where following orders would mean causing harm to another person.
• Participants were under the impression they were part of a learning and memory experiment.
• The “learners” in the study were actual participants who volunteered to be shocked as part of the experiment.
• The “learner” was an actor who was in on the experiment and never actually received any real shocks.
• Although the participant could not see the “learner”, he was able to hear him clearly through the wall
• The study was directly influenced by Milgram’s observations of obedience patterns in post-war Europe.
• The experiment was designed to understand the psychological mechanisms behind war crimes committed during World War II.
• The Milgram study was universally accepted in the psychological community, and no ethical concerns were raised about its methodology.
• When Milgram’s experiment was repeated in a rundown office building in Bridgeport, the percentage of the participants who fully complied with the commands of the experimenter remained unchanged.
• The experimenter (authority figure) delivered verbal prods to encourage the teacher to continue, such as ‘Please continue’ or ‘Please go on’.
• Over 80% of participants went on to deliver the maximum level of shock.
• Milgram sent participants questionnaires after the study to assess the effects and found that most felt no remorse or guilt, so it was ethical.
• The aftermath of the study led to stricter ethical guidelines in psychological research.
• The study emphasized the role of situational factors over personality traits in determining obedience.

Answers : Items 3, 8, 9, and 11 are the false statements.

Short Answer Questions

• Briefly explain the results of the original Milgram experiments. What did these results prove?
• List one scenario on how an authority figure can abuse obedience principles.
• List one scenario on how an individual could use these principles to defend their fellow peers.
• In a hospital, you are very likely to obey a nurse. However, if you meet her outside the hospital, for example in a shop, you are much less likely to obey. Using your knowledge of how people resist pressure to obey, explain why you are less likely to obey the nurse outside the hospital.
• Describe the shock instructions the participant (teacher) was told to follow when the victim (learner) gave an incorrect answer.
• State the lowest voltage shock that was labeled on the shock generator.
• What would likely happen if Milgram’s experiment included a condition in which the participant (teacher) had to give a high-level electric shock for the first wrong answer?

Group Activity

Gather in groups of three or four to discuss answers to the short answer questions above.

For question 2, review the different scenarios you each came up with. Then brainstorm on how these situations could be flipped.

For question 2, discuss how an authority figure could instead empower those below them in the examples your groupmates provide.

For question 3, discuss how a peer could do harm by using the obedience principles in the scenarios your groupmates provide.

Essay Topic

• What’s the most important lesson of Milgram’s Obedience Experiments? Fully explain and defend your answer.
• Milgram selectively edited his film of the obedience experiments to emphasize obedient behavior and minimize footage of disobedience. What are the ethical implications of a researcher selectively presenting findings in a way that fits their expected conclusions?

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Understanding the Milgram Experiment in Psychology

A closer look at Milgram's controversial studies of obedience

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Emily is a board-certified science editor who has worked with top digital publishing brands like Voices for Biodiversity, Study.com, GoodTherapy, Vox, and Verywell.

Isabelle Adam (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) via Flickr

Factors That Influence Obedience

• Ethical Concerns
• Replications

How far do you think people would go to obey an authority figure? Would they refuse to obey if the order went against their values or social expectations? Those questions were at the heart of an infamous and controversial study known as the Milgram obedience experiments.

Yale University  psychologist   Stanley Milgram  conducted these experiments during the 1960s. They explored the effects of authority on obedience. In the experiments, an authority figure ordered participants to deliver what they believed were dangerous electrical shocks to another person. These results suggested that people are highly influenced by authority and highly obedient . More recent investigations cast doubt on some of the implications of Milgram's findings and even the results and procedures themselves. Despite its problems, the study has, without question, made a significant impact on psychology .

At a Glance

Milgram's experiments posed the question: Would people obey orders, even if they believed doing so would harm another person? Milgram's findings suggested the answer was yes, they would. The experiments have long been controversial, both because of the startling findings and the ethical problems with the research. More recently, experts have re-examined the studies, suggesting that participants were often coerced into obeying and that at least some participants recognized that the other person was just pretending to be shocked. Such findings call into question the study's validity and authenticity, but some replications suggest that people are surprisingly prone to obeying authority.

History of the Milgram Experiments

Milgram started his experiments in 1961, shortly after the trial of the World War II criminal Adolf Eichmann had begun. Eichmann’s defense that he was merely following instructions when he ordered the deaths of millions of Jews roused Milgram’s interest.

In his 1974 book "Obedience to Authority," Milgram posed the question, "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?"

Procedure in the Milgram Experiment

The participants in the most famous variation of the Milgram experiment were 40 men recruited using newspaper ads. In exchange for their participation, each person was paid $4.50.

Milgram developed an intimidating shock generator, with shock levels starting at 15 volts and increasing in 15-volt increments all the way up to 450 volts. The many switches were labeled with terms including "slight shock," "moderate shock," and "danger: severe shock." The final three switches were labeled simply with an ominous "XXX."

Each participant took the role of a "teacher" who would then deliver a shock to the "student" in a neighboring room whenever an incorrect answer was given. While participants believed that they were delivering real shocks to the student, the “student” was a confederate in the experiment who was only pretending to be shocked.

As the experiment progressed, the participant would hear the learner plead to be released or even complain about a heart condition. Once they reached the 300-volt level, the learner would bang on the wall and demand to be released.

Beyond this point, the learner became completely silent and refused to answer any more questions. The experimenter then instructed the participant to treat this silence as an incorrect response and deliver a further shock.

Most participants asked the experimenter whether they should continue. The experimenter then responded with a series of commands to prod the participant along:

• "Please continue."
• "The experiment requires that you continue."
• "It is absolutely essential that you continue."
• "You have no other choice; you must go on."

Results of the Milgram Experiment

In the Milgram experiment, obedience was measured by the level of shock that the participant was willing to deliver. While many of the subjects became extremely agitated, distraught, and angry at the experimenter, they nevertheless continued to follow orders all the way to the end.

Milgram's results showed that 65% of the participants in the study delivered the maximum shocks. Of the 40 participants in the study, 26 delivered the maximum shocks, while 14 stopped before reaching the highest levels.

Why did so many of the participants in this experiment perform a seemingly brutal act when instructed by an authority figure? According to Milgram, there are some situational factors that can explain such high levels of obedience:

• The physical presence of an authority figure dramatically increased compliance .
• The fact that Yale (a trusted and authoritative academic institution) sponsored the study led many participants to believe that the experiment must be safe.
• The selection of teacher and learner status seemed random.
• Participants assumed that the experimenter was a competent expert.
• The shocks were said to be painful, not dangerous.

Later experiments conducted by Milgram indicated that the presence of rebellious peers dramatically reduced obedience levels. When other people refused to go along with the experimenter's orders, 36 out of 40 participants refused to deliver the maximum shocks.

More recent work by researchers suggests that while people do tend to obey authority figures, the process is not necessarily as cut-and-dried as Milgram depicted it.

In a 2012 essay published in PLoS Biology , researchers suggested that the degree to which people are willing to obey the questionable orders of an authority figure depends largely on two key factors:

• How much the individual agrees with the orders
• How much they identify with the person giving the orders

While it is clear that people are often far more susceptible to influence, persuasion , and obedience than they would often like to be, they are far from mindless machines just taking orders. 

Another study that analyzed Milgram's results concluded that eight factors influenced the likelihood that people would progress up to the 450-volt shock:

• The experimenter's directiveness
• Legitimacy and consistency
• Group pressure to disobey
• Indirectness of proximity
• Intimacy of the relation between the teacher and learner
• Distance between the teacher and learner

Ethical Concerns in the Milgram Experiment

Milgram's experiments have long been the source of considerable criticism and controversy. From the get-go, the ethics of his experiments were highly dubious. Participants were subjected to significant psychological and emotional distress.

Some of the major ethical issues in the experiment were related to:

• The use of deception
• The lack of protection for the participants who were involved
• Pressure from the experimenter to continue even after asking to stop, interfering with participants' right to withdraw

Due to concerns about the amount of anxiety experienced by many of the participants, everyone was supposedly debriefed at the end of the experiment. The researchers reported that they explained the procedures and the use of deception.

Critics of the study have argued that many of the participants were still confused about the exact nature of the experiment, and recent findings suggest that many participants were not debriefed at all.

Replications of the Milgram Experiment

While Milgram’s research raised serious ethical questions about the use of human subjects in psychology experiments , his results have also been consistently replicated in further experiments. One review further research on obedience and found that Milgram’s findings hold true in other experiments. In one study, researchers conducted a study designed to replicate Milgram's classic obedience experiment. The researchers made several alterations to Milgram's experiment.

• The maximum shock level was 150 volts as opposed to the original 450 volts.
• Participants were also carefully screened to eliminate those who might experience adverse reactions to the experiment.

The results of the new experiment revealed that participants obeyed at roughly the same rate that they did when Milgram conducted his original study more than 40 years ago.

Some psychologists suggested that in spite of the changes made in the replication, the study still had merit and could be used to further explore some of the situational factors that also influenced the results of Milgram's study. But other psychologists suggested that the replication was too dissimilar to Milgram's original study to draw any meaningful comparisons.

One study examined people's beliefs about how they would do compared to the participants in Milgram's experiments. They found that most people believed they would stop sooner than the average participants. These findings applied to both those who had never heard of Milgram's experiments and those who were familiar with them. In fact, those who knew about Milgram's experiments actually believed that they would stop even sooner than other people.

Another novel replication involved recruiting participants in pairs and having them take turns acting as either an 'agent' or 'victim.' Agents then received orders to shock the victim. The results suggest that only around 3.3% disobeyed the experimenter's orders.

Recent Criticisms and New Findings

Psychologist Gina Perry suggests that much of what we think we know about Milgram's famous experiments is only part of the story. While researching an article on the topic, she stumbled across hundreds of audiotapes found in Yale archives that documented numerous variations of Milgram's shock experiments.

Participants Were Often Coerced

While Milgram's reports of his process report methodical and uniform procedures, the audiotapes reveal something different. During the experimental sessions, the experimenters often went off-script and coerced the subjects into continuing the shocks.

"The slavish obedience to authority we have come to associate with Milgram’s experiments comes to sound much more like bullying and coercion when you listen to these recordings," Perry suggested in an article for Discover Magazine .

Few Participants Were Really Debriefed

Milgram suggested that the subjects were "de-hoaxed" after the experiments. He claimed he later surveyed the participants and found that 84% were glad to have participated, while only 1% regretted their involvement.

However, Perry's findings revealed that of the 700 or so people who took part in different variations of his studies between 1961 and 1962, very few were truly debriefed.

A true debriefing would have involved explaining that the shocks weren't real and that the other person was not injured. Instead, Milgram's sessions were mainly focused on calming the subjects down before sending them on their way.

Many participants left the experiment in a state of considerable distress. While the truth was revealed to some months or even years later, many were simply never told a thing.

Variations Led to Differing Results

Another problem is that the version of the study presented by Milgram and the one that's most often retold does not tell the whole story. The statistic that 65% of people obeyed orders applied only to one variation of the experiment, in which 26 out of 40 subjects obeyed.

In other variations, far fewer people were willing to follow the experimenters' orders, and in some versions of the study, not a single participant obeyed.

Participants Guessed the Learner Was Faking

Perry even tracked down some of the people who took part in the experiments, as well as Milgram's research assistants. What she discovered is that many of his subjects had deduced what Milgram's intent was and knew that the "learner" was merely pretending.

Such findings cast Milgram's results in a new light. It suggests that not only did Milgram intentionally engage in some hefty misdirection to obtain the results he wanted but that many of his participants were simply playing along.

An analysis of an unpublished study by Milgram's assistant, Taketo Murata, found that participants who believed they were really delivering a shock were less likely to obey, while those who did not believe they were actually inflicting pain were more willing to obey. In other words, the perception of pain increased defiance, while skepticism of pain increased obedience.

A review of Milgram's research materials suggests that the experiments exerted more pressure to obey than the original results suggested. Other variations of the experiment revealed much lower rates of obedience, and many of the participants actually altered their behavior when they guessed the true nature of the experiment.

Impact of the Milgram Experiment

Since there is no way to truly replicate the experiment due to its serious ethical and moral problems, determining whether Milgram's experiment really tells us anything about the power of obedience is impossible to determine.

So why does Milgram's experiment maintain such a powerful hold on our imaginations, even decades after the fact? Perry believes that despite all its ethical issues and the problem of never truly being able to replicate Milgram's procedures, the study has taken on the role of what she calls a "powerful parable."

Milgram's work might not hold the answers to what makes people obey or even the degree to which they truly obey. It has, however, inspired other researchers to explore what makes people follow orders and, perhaps more importantly, what leads them to question authority.

Recent findings undermine the scientific validity of the study. Milgram's work is also not truly replicable due to its ethical problems. However, the study has led to additional research on how situational factors can affect obedience to authority.

Milgram’s experiment has become a classic in psychology , demonstrating the dangers of obedience. The research suggests that situational variables have a stronger sway than personality factors in determining whether people will obey an authority figure. However, other psychologists argue that both external and internal factors heavily influence obedience, such as personal beliefs and overall temperament.

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Russell NJC. Milgram's obedience to authority experiments: origins and early evolution . Br J Soc Psychol . 2011;50:140-162. doi:10.1348/014466610X492205

Haslam SA, Reicher SD. Contesting the "nature" of conformity: What Milgram and Zimbardo's studies really show . PLoS Biol. 2012;10(11):e1001426. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001426

Milgram S. Liberating effects of group pressure . J Person Soc Psychol. 1965;1(2):127-234. doi:10.1037/h0021650

Haslam N, Loughnan S, Perry G. Meta-Milgram: an empirical synthesis of the obedience experiments .  PLoS One . 2014;9(4):e93927. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0093927

Perry G. Deception and illusion in Milgram's accounts of the obedience experiments . Theory Appl Ethics . 2013;2(2):79-92.

Blass T. The Milgram paradigm after 35 years: some things we now know about obedience to authority . J Appl Soc Psychol. 1999;29(5):955-978. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1999.tb00134.x

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Caspar EA. A novel experimental approach to study disobedience to authority .  Sci Rep . 2021;11(1):22927. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-02334-8

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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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The Milgram Experiment: How Far Will You Go to Obey an Order?

Understand the infamous study and its conclusions about human nature

• Archaeology
• Ph.D., Psychology, University of California - Santa Barbara
• B.A., Psychology and Peace & Conflict Studies, University of California - Berkeley

A brief Milgram experiment summary is as follows: In the 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of studies on the concepts of obedience and authority. His experiments involved instructing study participants to deliver increasingly high-voltage shocks to an actor in another room, who would scream and eventually go silent as the shocks became stronger. The shocks weren't real, but study participants were made to believe that they were.

Today, the Milgram experiment is widely criticized on both ethical and scientific grounds. However, Milgram's conclusions about humanity's willingness to obey authority figures remain influential and well-known.

Key Takeaways: The Milgram Experiment

• The goal of the Milgram experiment was to test the extent of humans' willingness to obey orders from an authority figure.
• Participants were told by an experimenter to administer increasingly powerful electric shocks to another individual. Unbeknownst to the participants, shocks were fake and the individual being shocked was an actor.
• The majority of participants obeyed, even when the individual being shocked screamed in pain.
• The experiment has been widely criticized on ethical and scientific grounds.

Detailed Milgram’s Experiment Summary

In the most well-known version of the Milgram experiment, the 40 male participants were told that the experiment focused on the relationship between punishment, learning, and memory. The experimenter then introduced each participant to a second individual, explaining that this second individual was participating in the study as well. Participants were told that they would be randomly assigned to roles of "teacher" and "learner." However, the "second individual" was an actor hired by the research team, and the study was set up so that the true participant would always be assigned to the "teacher" role.

During the Milgram experiment, the learner was located in a separate room from the teacher (the real participant), but the teacher could hear the learner through the wall. The experimenter told the teacher that the learner would memorize word pairs and instructed the teacher to ask the learner questions. If the learner responded incorrectly to a question, the teacher would be asked to administer an electric shock. The shocks started at a relatively mild level (15 volts) but increased in 15-volt increments up to 450 volts. (In actuality, the shocks were fake, but the participant was led to believe they were real.)

Participants were instructed to give a higher shock to the learner with each wrong answer. When the 150-volt shock was administered, the learner would cry out in pain and ask to leave the study. He would then continue crying out with each shock until the 330-volt level, at which point he would stop responding.

During this process, whenever participants expressed hesitation about continuing with the study, the experimenter would urge them to go on with increasingly firm instructions, culminating in the statement, "You have no other choice, you must go on." The study ended when participants refused to obey the experimenter’s demand, or when they gave the learner the highest level of shock on the machine (450 volts).

Milgram found that participants obeyed the experimenter at an unexpectedly high rate: 65% of the participants gave the learner the 450-volt shock.

Critiques of the Milgram Experiment

The Milgram experiment has been widely criticized on ethical grounds. Milgram’s participants were led to believe that they acted in a way that harmed someone else, an experience that could have had long-term consequences. Moreover, an investigation by writer Gina Perry uncovered that some participants appear to not have been fully debriefed after the study —they were told months later, or not at all, that the shocks were fake and the learner wasn’t harmed. Milgram’s studies could not be perfectly recreated today, because researchers today are required to pay much more attention to the safety and well-being of human research subjects.

Researchers have also questioned the scientific validity of Milgram’s results. In her examination of the study, Perry found that Milgram’s experimenter may have gone off script and told participants to obey many more times than the script specified. Additionally, some research suggests that participants may have figured out that the learner was not harmed: in interviews conducted after the Milgram experiment, some participants reported that they didn’t think the learner was in any real danger. This mindset is likely to have affected their behavior in the study.

Variations on the Milgram Experiment

Milgram and other researchers conducted numerous versions of the experiment over time. The participants' levels of compliance with the experimenter’s demands varied greatly from one study to the next. For example, when participants were in closer proximity to the learner (e.g. in the same room), they were less likely to give the learner the highest level of shock.

Another version of the Milgram experiment brought three "teachers" into the experiment room at once. One was a real participant, and the other two were actors hired by the research team. During the experiment, the two non-participant teachers would quit as the level of shocks began to increase. Milgram found that these conditions made the real participant far more likely to "disobey" the experimenter, too: only 10% of participants gave the 450-volt shock to the learner.

In yet another version of the Milgram experiment, two experimenters were present, and during the experiment, they would begin arguing with one another about whether it was right to continue the study. In this version, none of the participants gave the learner the 450-volt shock.

Replicating the Milgram Experiment

Researchers have sought to replicate Milgram's original study with additional safeguards in place to protect participants. In 2009, Jerry Burger replicated Milgram’s famous experiment at Santa Clara University with new safeguards in place: the highest shock level was 150 volts, and participants were told that the shocks were fake immediately after the experiment ended. Additionally, participants were screened by a clinical psychologist before the experiment began, and those found to be at risk of a negative reaction to the study were deemed ineligible to participate.

Burger found that participants obeyed at similar levels as Milgram’s participants: 82.5% of Milgram’s participants gave the learner the 150-volt shock, and 70% of Burger’s participants did the same.

The Legacy of the Milgram Experiment

Milgram’s interpretation of his research was that everyday people are capable of carrying out unthinkable actions in certain circumstances. His research has been used to explain atrocities such as the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, though these applications are by no means widely accepted or agreed upon.

Importantly, not all participants obeyed the experimenter’s demands , and Milgram’s studies shed light on the factors that enable people to stand up to authority. In fact, as sociologist Matthew Hollander writes, we may be able to learn from the participants who disobeyed, as their strategies may enable us to respond more effectively to an unethical situation. The Milgram experiment suggested that human beings are susceptible to obeying authority, but it also demonstrated that obedience is not inevitable.

• Baker, Peter C. “Electric Schlock: Did Stanley Milgram's Famous Obedience Experiments Prove Anything?” Pacific Standard (2013, Sep. 10). https://psmag.com/social-justice/electric-schlock-65377
• Burger, Jerry M. "Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?."  American Psychologist 64.1 (2009): 1-11. http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2008-19206-001
• Gilovich, Thomas, Dacher Keltner, and Richard E. Nisbett. Social Psychology . 1st edition, W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.
• Hollander, Matthew. “How to Be a Hero: Insight From the Milgram Experiment.” HuffPost Contributor Network (2015, Apr. 29). https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-to-be-a-hero-insight-_b_6566882
• Jarrett, Christian. “New Analysis Suggests Most Milgram Participants Realised the ‘Obedience Experiments’ Were Not Really Dangerous.” The British Psychological Society: Research Digest (2017, Dec. 12). https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/12/12/interviews-with-milgram-participants-provide-little-support-for-the-contemporary-theory-of-engaged-followership/
• Perry, Gina. “The Shocking Truth of the Notorious Milgram Obedience Experiments.” Discover Magazine Blogs (2013, Oct. 2). http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2013/10/02/the-shocking-truth-of-the-notorious-milgram-obedience-experiments/
• Romm, Cari. “Rethinking One of Psychology's Most Infamous Experiments.” The Atlantic (2015, Jan. 28) . https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/rethinking-one-of-psychologys-most-infamous-experiments/384913/
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September 26, 2024

Milgram’s Infamous Shock Studies Still Hold Lessons for Confronting Authoritarianism

Why ordinary people will follow orders to the point of hurting others remains a critical question for scientists—though some answers have emerged

By Laura Niemi , Edouard Machery & John M. Doris

AndreyPopov/Getty Images

Fifty years ago Stanley Milgram published his book Obedience to Authority , which described what have arguably become the most famous experiments in psychology. As the book detailed, an experimenter informed participants—called “teachers” in the study—that they would be administering progressively stronger shocks to people called “learners.” The shocks were not real, but participants thought they were.

The majority of participants proceeded to shock learners despite hearing screams of apparent agony. Under the experimenter’s direction, two thirds of participants in the study’s canonical version continued to the highest voltage level , even when the learner complained of heart problems and later stopped screaming, presumably having lost consciousness.

Today Milgram’s “shock experiments” appear in psychology textbooks , movies , TV shows, blog posts and podcasts. When a point must be made about humans’ vulnerability to pernicious authority figures, Milgram’s findings are there. But this work has never settled comfortably with science or the public. It was, and still is, upsetting to know that participants did what they did. People think, “Surely I wouldn’t do that.” Philosophers and scientists are similarly surprised that so many of the supposed teachers “followed orders” all the way to the maximum shock voltage.

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Researchers have taken a critical lens to Milgram’s work time and again. Well-founded concerns about the ethics of putting participants in such distressing circumstances have led to much stricter research standards. Further, an important reform movement in psychology has prompted reexamination of many classic experiments. One critique suggests that perhaps Milgram misinterpreted his findings: maybe the participants did not actually believe “learners” were being shocked.

By reexamining the data from Milgram’s experiments and considering the outcomes of several conceptual replications (more recent studies that used different approaches to probe people’s susceptibility to authority figures), we determined that, in fact, Milgram’s work and conclusions still stand. That finding has several important implications, particularly for confronting the knotty question of how people might overcome the tendency to submit to malevolent authority.

First, we should note that Milgram’s experimental paradigm is robustly replicable. Milgram himself closely replicated the findings of the canonical version of his experiment at least three times. In addition, we’ve identified 20 replications from around the world with varying degrees of fealty to the original study. One variation involved participants carrying out orders to torment “job applicants” by making negative comments until the applicants failed their qualification exams and lost their chance at employment. Another used a game-show scenario in which participants questioned and shocked fellow contestants in front of a studio audience. These efforts show that many people follow the instructions of various kinds of authority figures—even to the point of causing others extreme distress.

But do participants believe these setups are real? When we reanalyzed data from Milgram’s original experiments, we found that the evidence is strongly against the notion that people followed orders because they didn’t believe in the experimental scenario. When the experiment was over, Milgram told participants that the learner was not really being shocked and asked them if they had believed the shocks were real. The participants overwhelmingly affirmed belief in the experimental protocol, Milgram’s data show. Indeed, videos of these experiments (both Milgram’s own and others’ ) are disturbing in part because of the participants’ acute discomfort, anxiety and stress. Why would they be upset if they knew the shocks were fake? Furthermore, when we look at Milgram’s data, we find that obedient and disobedient participants reported very similar levels of belief in the experiment.

These studies reveal that we are motivated to carry out an authority figure’s requests. The question is whether we can guard against that tendency. In his theory of moral disengagement , the late social psychologist Albert Bandura describes blame-shifting as one powerful mechanism that allows people who carry out immoral orders to “disengage” from their moral compass. For example, by claiming “I was just following orders,” people move culpability onto the person who issued the command, avoiding self-condemnation. Milgram’s experiments provide dramatic evidence of a kind of blame-shifting called victim-blaming. One of his subjects reported being “disgusted” when the learner wouldn’t cooperate, stating, “You better answer and get it over with. We can’t stay here all night.”

One of us (Niemi) has studied when and why people blame victims for their own suffering and has found that the more people express strong support for moral values centered on authority and traditional hierarchies, the more likely they are to agree that victims deserve their misfortune. Fortunately, the findings also suggest that the more that people express support for moral values centered on care and fairness, the more sensitive they are to victims’ suffering. Such values can be consciously cultivated and are highly prized by many different communities. These findings apply across different political groups, genders and religious beliefs.

There are also slivers of hope within Milgram’s original experiment and variations. For instance, when participants chose the voltage themselves, very few doled out maximum punishment to the “learners.” Most people—far from being naturally sadistic—were averse to inflicting painful shocks. Strikingly, people overwhelmingly resisted the experimenter’s directions when they were joined by two “defiant peers” who refused to follow orders. Imagine the power for good each of us could have if we were to join together against authoritarian influence.

When we zoom out to the big picture, we can see that Milgram’s work also points to the seriousness of selecting appropriate leadership—whether in the boardroom or for political office. Ultimately, the people in charge can influence many others to follow their direction. That’s just as important to understand now as it was half a century ago.

The authoritarianism that was the impetus for Milgram’s work remains on the rise worldwide , and with it has risen the normalization of violating core democratic values: impartiality, transparency, openness, protection from harm and recusal from conflicts of interest. In response, research programs investigating the slippage of democracy and increases in totalitarian governance are increasing not only in psychology but in adjacent fields such as public policy, political science, sociology and philosophy. It’s therefore critical to correct misinterpretations of Milgram’s work.

Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about for Mind Matters? Please send suggestions to Scientific American ’s Mind Matters editor Daisy Yuhas at [email protected] .

This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American .

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Author Interviews

Taking a closer look at milgram's shocking obedience study.

Behind the Shock Machine

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In the early 1960s, Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist at Yale, conducted a series of experiments that became famous. Unsuspecting Americans were recruited for what purportedly was an experiment in learning. A man who pretended to be a recruit himself was wired up to a phony machine that supposedly administered shocks. He was the "learner." In some versions of the experiment he was in an adjoining room.

The unsuspecting subject of the experiment, the "teacher," read lists of words that tested the learner's memory. Each time the learner got one wrong, which he intentionally did, the teacher was instructed by a man in a white lab coat to deliver a shock. With each wrong answer the voltage went up. From the other room came recorded and convincing protests from the learner — even though no shock was actually being administered.

The results of Milgram's experiment made news and contributed a dismaying piece of wisdom to the public at large: It was reported that almost two-thirds of the subjects were capable of delivering painful, possibly lethal shocks, if told to do so. We are as obedient as Nazi functionaries.

Or are we? Gina Perry, a psychologist from Australia, has written Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments . She has been retracing Milgram's steps, interviewing his subjects decades later.

"The thought of quitting never ... occurred to me," study participant Bill Menold told Perry in an Australian radio documentary . "Just to say: 'You know what? I'm walking out of here' — which I could have done. It was like being in a situation that you never thought you would be in, not really being able to think clearly."

In his experiments, Milgram was "looking to investigate what it was that had contributed to the brainwashing of American prisoners of war by the Chinese [in the Korean war]," Perry tells NPR's Robert Siegel.

Interview Highlights

On turning from an admirer of Milgram to a critic

"That was an unexpected outcome for me, really. I regarded Stanley Milgram as a misunderstood genius who'd been penalized in some ways for revealing something troubling and profound about human nature. By the end of my research I actually had quite a very different view of the man and the research."

Watch A Video Of One Of The Milgram Obedience Experiments

On the many variations of the experiment

"Over 700 people took part in the experiments. When the news of the experiment was first reported, and the shocking statistic that 65 percent of people went to maximum voltage on the shock machine was reported, very few people, I think, realized then and even realize today that that statistic applied to 26 of 40 people. Of those other 700-odd people, obedience rates varied enormously. In fact, there were variations of the experiment where no one obeyed."

On how Milgram's study coincided with the trial of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann — and how the experiment reinforced what Hannah Arendt described as "the banality of evil"

"The Eichmann trial was a televised trial and it did reintroduce the whole idea of the Holocaust to a new American public. And Milgram very much, I think, believed that Hannah Arendt's view of Eichmann as a cog in a bureaucratic machine was something that was just as applicable to Americans in New Haven as it was to people in Germany."

On the ethics of working with human subjects

"Certainly for people in academia and scholars the ethical issues involved in Milgram's experiment have always been a hot issue. They were from the very beginning. And Milgram's experiment really ignited a debate particularly in social sciences about what was acceptable to put human subjects through."

Gina Perry is an Australian psychologist. She has previously written for The Age and The Australian. Chris Beck/Courtesy of The New Press hide caption

Gina Perry is an Australian psychologist. She has previously written for The Age and The Australian.

On conversations with the subjects, decades after the experiment

"[Bill Menold] doesn't sound resentful. I'd say he sounds thoughtful and he has reflected a lot on the experiment and the impact that it's had on him and what it meant at the time. I did interview someone else who had been disobedient in the experiment but still very much resented 50 years later that he'd never been de-hoaxed at the time and he found that really unacceptable."

On the problem that one of social psychology's most famous findings cannot be replicated

"I think it leaves social psychology in a difficult situation. ... it is such an iconic experiment. And I think it really leads to the question of why it is that we continue to refer to and believe in Milgram's results. I think the reason that Milgram's experiment is still so famous today is because in a way it's like a powerful parable. It's so widely known and so often quoted that it's taken on a life of its own. ... This experiment and this story about ourselves plays some role for us 50 years later."

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How stanley milgram 'shocked the world', research news, scientists debate 'six degrees of separation'.

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IResearchNet

Stanley Milgram’s Experiment

Stanley Milgram was one of the most influential social psychologists of the twentieth century. Born in 1933 in New York, he obtained a BA from Queen’s College, and went on to receive a PhD in psychology from Harvard. Subsequently, Milgram held faculty positions in psychology at Yale University and the City University of New York until his untimely death in 1984. Although Milgram never held a formal appointment in sociology, his work was centrally focused on the social psychological aspects of social structure.

In a historic coincidence, in 1961, just as Milgram was about to begin work on his famous obedience experiments, the world witnessed the trial of Adolf Otto Eichmann, a high ranking Nazi official who was in charge of organizing the transport of millions of Jews to the death camps. To many, Eichmann appeared not at all to be the fervent anti Semite that many had suspected him to be; rather, his main defense was that he was only ‘‘following orders’’ as an administrator. To the political theorist Hannah Arendt, Eichmann’s case illustrated the ‘‘banality of evil,’’ in which personal malice appeared to matter less than the desire of individuals to fulfill their roles in the larger context of a bureaucracy. Milgram’s research is arguably the most striking example to illustrate this dynamic.

Milgram planned and conducted his obedience experiments between 1960 and 1963 at Yale University. In order to be able to study obedience to authority, he put unsuspecting research participants in a novel situation, which he staged in the laboratory. With the help of actors and props, Milgram set up an experimental ruse that was so real that hardly any of his research participants suspected that, in reality, nothing was what it pretended to be.

For this initial study, using newspaper ads promising $4.50 for participation in a psychological study, Milgram recruited men aged 20 to 50, ranging from elementary school drop outs to PhDs. Each research participant arrived in the lab along with another man, white and roughly 30 years of age, whom they thought to be another research participant. In reality, this person was a confederate, that is, an actor in cahoots with the experimenter. The experimenter explained that both men were about to take part in a study that explored the effect of punishment on memory. One man would assume the role of a ‘‘teacher’’ who would read a series of word pairings (e.g., nice day, blue box), which the other (‘‘the learner’’) was supposed to memorize. Subsequently, the teacher would read the first word of the pair with the learner having to select the correct second word from a list. Every mistake by the learner would be punished with an electric shock. It was further made clear that, although the shocks would be painful, they would not do any permanent harm.

Following this explanation, the experimenter assigned both men to the roles. Because the procedure was rigged, the unsuspecting research participant always was assigned to the role of teacher. As first order of business, the learner was seated in an armchair in an adjoining room such that he would be separated by a wall from the teacher, but would other wise be able to hear him from the main room. Electrodes were affixed to the learner’s arms, who was subsequently strapped to the chair apparently to make sure that improper movements would not endanger the success of the experiment.

In the main room, the teacher was told that he would have to apply electric shocks every time the learner made a mistake. For this purpose, the learner was seated in front of an electric generator with various dials. The experimenter instructed the teacher to steadily increase the voltage of the shock each time the learner made a new mistake. The shock generator showed a row of levers ranging from 15 volts on the left to 450 volts on the right, with each lever in between delivering a shock 15 volts higher than its neighbor on the left. Milgram labeled the voltage level, left to right, from ‘‘Slight Shock’’ to ‘‘Danger: Severe Shock,’’ with the last two switches being marked ‘‘XXX.’’ The teacher was told that he simply should work his way from the left to the right without using any lever twice. To give the teacher an idea of the electric current he would deliver to the learner, he received a sample shock of 45 volts, which most research participants found surprisingly painful. However, despite its appearance, in reality the generator never emitted any electric shocks. It was merely a device that allowed Milgram to examine how far the teacher would go in harming another person based on the experimenter’s say so.

As learning trials started, the teacher applied electric shocks to the learner. The learner’s responses were scripted such that he apparently made many mistakes, requiring the teacher to increase shock levels by 15 volts with every new mistake. As the strength of electric shocks increased, occasional grunts and moans of pain were heard from the learner. At 120 volts the learner started complaining about the pain. At 150 volts, the learner demanded to be released on account of a heart condition, and the protest continued until the shocks reached 300 volts and the learner started pounding on the wall. At 315 volts the learner stopped responding altogether.

As the complaints by the learner started, the teacher would often turn to the experimenter, who was seated at a nearby desk, wondering whether and how to proceed. The experimenter, instead of terminating the experiment, replied with a scripted succession of prods:

• Prod 1: ‘‘Please continue.’’
• Prod 2: ‘‘The experiment requires that you continue.’’
• Prod 3: ‘‘It is absolutely necessary to continue.’’
• Prod 4: ‘‘You have no other choice: you must go on.’’

These prods were successful in coaxing many teachers into continuing to apply electric shocks even when the learner no longer responded to the word memory questions. Indeed, in the first of Milgram’s experiments, a stunning 65 percent of all participants continued all the way to 450 volts, and not a single participant refused to continue the shocks before they reached the 300 volt level! The high levels of compliance illustrate the powerful effect of the social structure that participants had entered. By accepting the role of teacher in the experiment in exchange for the payment of a nominal fee, participants had agreed to accept the authority of the experimenter and carry out his instructions. In other words, just as Milgram suspected, the social forces of hierarchy and obedience could push normal and well adjusted individuals into harming others.

The overall level of obedience, however, does not reveal the tremendous amount of stress that all teachers experienced. Because the situation was extremely realistic, teachers were agonizing over whether or not to continue the electric shocks. Should they care for the well being of the obviously imperiled learners and even put their life in danger? Or should they abide by a legitimate authority figure, who presented his instructions crisply and confidently? Participants typically sought to resolve this conflict by seeking assurances that the experimenter, and not themselves, would accept full responsibility for their actions. Once they felt assured, they typically continued to apply shocks that would have likely electrocuted the learner.

Milgram expanded his initial research into a series of 19 experiments in which he carefully examined the conditions under which obedience would occur. For instance, the teacher’s proximity to the learner was an important factor in lowering obedience, that is, the proportion of people willing to deliver the full 450 volts. When the teacher was in the same room with the learner, obedience dropped to 40 percent, and when the teacher was required to touch the learner and apply physical force to deliver the electric shock, obedience dropped to 30 percent.

Milgram further suspected that the social status of the experimenter, presumably a serious Yale University researcher in a white lab coat, would have important implications for obedience. Indeed, when there was no obvious connection with Yale, and the above experiment was repeated in a run down office building in Bridgeport, Connecticut, obedience dropped to 48 percent. Indeed, when not the white coated experimenter but another confederate encouraged the teacher to continue the shocks, all participants terminated the experiment as soon as the confederate complained. Milgram concluded that ‘‘a substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and with out limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority’’ (1965). However, additional studies highlighted that obedience is in part contingent on surveillance. When the experimenter transmitted his orders not in person but via telephone, obedience levels dropped to 20 percent, with many participants only pretending to apply higher and higher electric shocks.

Since its initial publication in 1963, Mil gram’s research has drawn a lot of criticism, mainly on ethical grounds. First, it was alleged that it was unethical to deceive participants to the extent that occurred in these studies. It is important to note that all participants were fully debriefed on the deception, and most did not seem to mind and were relieved to find out that they had not shocked the learner. The second ethical criticism is, however, much more serious. As alluded to earlier, Milgram exposed his participants to tremendous levels of stress. Milgram, anticipating this criticism, inter viewed participants after the experiment and followed up several weeks later. The over whelming majority of his participants commented that they enjoyed being in the experiment, and only a small minority experienced regret. Even though personally Milgram rejected allegations of having mistreated his participants, his own work suggests that he may have gone too far: ‘‘Subjects were observed to sweat, tremble, bite their lips, groan, and dig their fingernails into their flesh . . . A mature and initially poised businessman entered the laboratory smiling and confident. Within 20 minutes, he was reduced to a twitching, stuttering wreck who was rapidly approaching a point of nervous collapse’’ (1963: 375). Today, Milgram’s obedience studies are generally considered unethical and would not pass muster with regard to contemporary regulations protecting the well being of research participants. Ironically, partly because Milgram’s studies illustrated the power of hierarchical social relationships, contemporary researchers are at great pains to avoid coercion and allow participants to terminate their participation in any research study at any time without penalty.

Another type of criticism of the obedience studies has questioned their generality and charged that their usefulness in explaining real world events is limited. Indeed, Milgram conducted his research when trust in authorities was higher than it is nowadays. However, Milgram’s studies have withstood this criticism. Reviews of research conducted using Milgram’s paradigm have generally found obedience levels to be at roughly 60 percent (see, e.g., Blass 2000). In one of his studies Milgram further documented that there was no apparent difference in the responses of women and men. More recent research using more ethically acceptable methods further testifies to the power of obedience in shaping human action (Blass 2000).

Milgram offers an important approach to explaining the Holocaust by emphasizing the bureaucratic nature of evil, which relegated individuals to executioners of orders issued by a legitimate authority. Sociologists have extended this analysis and provided compelling accounts of obedience as root causes of many horrific crimes, ranging from the My Lai massacre to Watergate (Hamilton & Kelman 1989). How ever, it is arguably somewhat unclear to what extent Milgram’s findings can help explain the occurrence of the Holocaust itself. Whereas obedience kept the machinery of death running with frightening efficiency, historians often caution against ignoring the malice and sadism that many of Hitler’s executioners brought to the task (see Blass 2004).

Milgram’s dramatic experiments have left a lasting impression beyond the social sciences. They are the topic of various movies, including the 1975 TV film The Tenth Level starring William Shatner. Further, the 37 percent of participants who did not obey were memorialized in a 1986 song by the rock musician Peter Gabriel titled ‘‘We Do What We’re Told (Milgram’s 37).’’

References:

• Blass, T. (Ed.) (2000) Obedience to Authority: Current Perspectives on the Milgram Paradigm. Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ.
• Blass, T. (2004) The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram. Basic Books, New York.
• Hamilton, V. L. & Kelman, H. (1989) Crimes of Obedience: Toward a Social Psychology of Authority and Responsibility. Yale University Press, New Haven.
• Milgram, S. (1963) Behavioral Study of Obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 69: 371-8.
• Milgram, S. (1965) Some Conditions of Obedience and Disobedience to Authority. Human Relations 18: 57-76.
• Milgram, S. (1974) Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. Harper & Row, New York.