Editing Milgram experiment (section)

{{short description|Series of social psychology experiments}}
{{For|Milgram's other well-known experiment|Small-world experiment}}
{{Redirect|Obedience to Authority|the book|Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View{{!}}''Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View''}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2018}}
[[File:Milgram experiment v2.svg|right|thumb|200px|The experimenter (E) orders the teacher (T), the subject of the experiment, to give what the teacher (T) believes are painful electric shocks to a learner (L), who is actually an actor and [[wikt:confederate|confederate]]. The subject is led to believe that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual electric shocks, though in reality there were no such punishments. Being separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level.<ref name="ObedStudy" />]]

Beginning on August 7, 1961, a series of [[social psychology]] experiments were conducted by [[Yale University]] psychologist [[Stanley Milgram]], who intended to measure the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal [[conscience]]. Participants were led to believe that they were assisting a fictitious experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a "learner". These fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real.<ref name="blass"/>

The experiments unexpectedly found that a very high proportion of subjects would fully obey the instructions, with every participant going up to 300 volts, and 65% going up to the full 450 volts. Milgram first described his research in a 1963 article in the ''[[Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology]]''<ref name="ObedStudy">{{cite journal |last=Milgram |first=Stanley |year=1963 |title=Behavioral Study of Obedience |journal=Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology |volume=67 |issue=4 |pages=371–8 |pmid=14049516 |url=http://content.apa.org/journals/abn/67/4/371 |doi=10.1037/h0040525 |citeseerx=10.1.1.599.92 |s2cid=18309531 |access-date=November 20, 2006 |archive-date=July 17, 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120717013242/http://content.apa.org/journals/abn/67/4/371 |url-status=live }} [http://library.nhsggc.org.uk/mediaAssets/Mental%20Health%20Partnership/Peper%202%2027th%20Nov%20Milgram_Study%20KT.pdf as PDF.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150404094832/http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/social_dilemmas/fall/Readings/Week_06/milgram.pdf |date=April 4, 2015 }}</ref> and later discussed his findings in greater depth in his 1974 book, ''[[Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View]]''.<ref name=":1">{{cite book |last=Milgram |first=Stanley |title=Obedience to Authority; An Experimental View |publisher=Harpercollins |year=1974 |isbn=978-0-06-131983-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/obedien_mil_1974_00_3145|url-access=registration }}</ref>

The experiments began on August 7, 1961 (after a grant proposal was approved in July), in the basement of Linsly-Chittenden Hall at Yale University, three months after the start of the trial of German [[Nazi]] [[war criminal]] [[Adolf Eichmann]] in [[Jerusalem]].<ref>[[Thomas Blass]], ''The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram'' (Basic Books, 2009) p. 75</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Zimbardo |first1=Philip |title=When Good People Do Evil |url=http://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2007_01/milgram.html |access-date=April 24, 2015 |website=Yale Alumni Magazine |publisher=Yale Alumni Publications, Inc. |archive-date=May 2, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150502132839/http://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2007_01/milgram.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Milgram devised his psychological study to explain the [[psychology of genocide]] and answer the popular contemporary question: "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in [[the Holocaust]] were [[just following orders]]? Could we call them all accomplices?"<ref>Stanley Milgram, ''Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View'' (New York: Harper & Row, 1974) p. 123</ref>

While the experiment was repeated many times around the globe, with fairly consistent results, both its [[Milgram experiment#Interpretations|interpretations]] as well as its [[Milgram experiment#Critical reception|applicability to the Holocaust]] are disputed.<ref name="Blass1991">{{Cite journal |last=Blass |first=Thomas |year=1991 |title=Understanding behavior in the Milgram obedience experiment: The role of personality, situations, and their interactions |url=http://www.stanleymilgram.com/pdf/understanding%20behavoir.pdf |journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology |volume=60 |issue=3 |pages=398–413 |doi=10.1037/0022-3514.60.3.398 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307085220/http://stanleymilgram.com/pdf/understanding%20behavoir.pdf |archive-date=March 7, 2016}}</ref>{{dubious|date=July 2024}}<ref>{{cite book | last = Rutger | first = Bregman | year = 2020 | title = Humankind | publisher = Bloomsbury | pages = 161–180 | isbn = 978-1-4088-9894-9 }}</ref>