Stanley Milgram’s Obedience To Authority Experiment

Between 1960 and 1963 the psychologist Stanley Milgram, from Yale University, recruited 40 random white, male volunteers (workers, employees, professionals, etc.) for what they believed was a paid memory study. The distribution of the roles of the student and the teacher:

• The “professors”, who were not familiar with an experiment other than the one explained.
• The “students”, accomplices of the experimenter.

The volunteers were led to two separate rooms, and the teacher was placed in front of an electrical control panel composed of several buttons under which the voltage and the degree of danger of the discharge were written. The teacher then had to read pairs of words to the student and propose associations, then determine if the answer given by the student was correct.

The teacher was initially subjected to a “test” with a 45-volt electric shock for the student, then he personally proceeded to interrogate the other (who never managed to remember the words to be memorized very well) by administering shocks of increasing intensity, of mild shocks. (marked on the button as “mild shock”) until rising, in stages of 15 volts, to a regime of 375 volts (marked “danger: severe shock”) and finally to 435 and 450 volts, simply marked on the button, with X. The victim, in the other room, was tied to a type of electric chair ; The volunteer, at a short distance, could not see her but he heard her sounds.

In fact, When the student made a mistake, the teacher had to inflict an increasingly stronger shock and the experimenter, for his part, constantly encouraged the teaching subject to continue and carry out the experiment, even when they were perplexed or reluctant to continue the interrogation and shocks.

The degree of obedience was measured based on the last switch pressed, and 65% of the people made it to the end of the test, despite the warning that the shock could have caused serious, even lethal, consequences to the student. 26 out of 40 subjects continued the experiment up to a maximum of 450 volts ; no one refused to continue before reaching 300 volts. The experiment was repeated in different circumstances and with variations in the method, always with similar results. After the experiment, the volunteers were told the truth, and what had happened was calmly discussed.

Image: Behavioral scientist

Milgram was the son of Jews who had fled Eastern Europe during World War II and wanted to understand, like so many in his condition, why the Germans had collaborated in the extermination of the Jews From the beginning, the psychologist, in fact, presented his study as the definitive explanation of the Holocaust.

This implausible and frightening degree of obedience that drives human beings to violate their moral and ethical principles It has been explained by Milgram with subordination to an authority that the subject considers legitimate and that, therefore, induces a state of heteronomy.

He heteronomy state It occurs when a subject no longer perceives the options and actions he or she performs as his or her own, precisely because they are governed by an external order. This state produces depersonalization. By explaining the factors that contribute to determining this state of heteronomy, the American psychologist makes us understand why there are submission, law of silence and code of honor induced in such a state:

1. The first factor is the conviction of the subject of the legitimacy of authority
2. The second factor is the adhesion to the system which leads to the conviction that obeying is the right thing to do and what is not discussed.
3. The third factor is the social pressure

It was all about authority: Milgram showed the human being as a creature that blindly follows orders. In the basements of Yale University, adults became unconscious children, dogs that obey whoever commands “sit,” “give me your paw,” or “jump in the canal.” They made all the Nazis think that, after the war, they kept repeating a three-word phrase: “befehl ist befehl”, orders are orders.

In Milgram’s experiment, it is explained that the danger lies in the fact that, If the individual accepts the ideological definition of the situation proposed by the authority, even a destructive and immoral action ends up being considered reasonable or necessary

In the following article you will find other interesting psychological experiments.

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