The Milgram Experiment: Testing Blind Obedience to Authority

The 1950s and 1960s were the proverbial heydays for behavioral psychology experiments in the United States. 

Harry Harlow’s Rhesus Monkey Experiments tested the effects of maternal separation and social isolation. The Solomon Asch Conformity Experiments tested the power of conformity in groups. Finally, the New York Child Development Center’s Child Development Twin Study examined the effects of twins raised apart. 

These experiments provided what the psychological community considered invaluable insight into human behavior. But none proved more revealing than the Milgram Experiment, an ongoing experiment conducted from 1961 to 1963 to test our blind obedience to authority and indifference to human suffering. 

Background Context for the Milgram Experiment

Amid the highly publicized trial of German Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in1961, Yale Assistant Professor of Psychology Stanley Milgram set out to scientifically explain the psychology of genocide. 

Eichmann, the primary perpetrator of the Holocaust, was captured in Argentina by Israeli operatives and taken to Israel to stand trial for war crimes. 

His trial, which began on April 11, 1961, was televised and broadcast internationally, intending to educate the public about atrocities committed against Jews; these proceedings were second only to the Nuremberg trials in terms of “crimes against humanity.” 

In that Eichmann did not accomplish these horrendous acts alone (and did not actually commit murder himself), Milgram set out to answer a few fundamental questions about human involvement in cruelty involving the taking of life. 

Could it be that Eichmann and the million accomplices involved in the Holocaust were following orders, somehow making them less culpable? Or should they all be considered collaborators? More to the point, how far would the typical individual go to obey an order?

How Was The Milgram Experiment Designed?

Milgram designed an experiment whereby participants were told by a man wearing a gray lab coat (to assert his position as authority) that they were volunteering to be part of an experiment to test the relationship between punishment, learning, and memory. 

They were told they would be randomly assigned to the role of either a “teacher” or “learner.” As a “teacher,” their job would be to ask the “learner” questions and then deliver increasingly higher voltage shocks depending on whether they answered correctly or not.

In reality, the “learner” was an actor paid to respond according to a script. The study was rigged so that every participant would be assigned the “teacher” role (the true subject of the experiment). The “learner” intentionally answered questions incorrectly—thus compelling the “teacher” to administer increasing levels of punishment. 

Separated by a partition, the “learner” would protest, scream and eventually go silent as the shocks became more powerful. Of course, the shocks weren’t real, but the subjects were led to believe they were. 

The sample group of participants was initially men between the ages of 20 and 50 from the New Haven, Connecticut, area. Still, as the number of male volunteers diminished, they also accepted women. In all, 780 volunteers took part in the experiment, 40 of which were women. Each participant was paid $4.50 for their cooperation.