Editing Milgram experiment (section)

==Replications and variations==
===Milgram's variations===
In ''[[Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View]]'' (1974), Milgram describes 19 variations of his experiment, some of which had not been previously reported.

Several experiments varied the distance between the participant (teacher) and the learner. Generally, when the participant was physically closer to the learner, the participant's [[Compliance (psychology)|compliance]] decreased. In the variation where the learner's physical immediacy was closest—where the participant had to hold the learner's arm onto a shock plate—30 percent of participants completed the experiment. The participant's compliance also decreased if the experimenter was physically farther away (Experiments 1–4). For example, in Experiment 2, where participants received telephonic instructions from the experimenter, compliance decreased to 21 percent. Some participants deceived the experimenter by pretending to continue the experiment.

In Experiment 8, an all-female contingent was used; previously, all participants had been men. Obedience did not significantly differ, though the women communicated experiencing higher levels of stress.

Experiment 10 took place in a modest office in [[Bridgeport]], [[Connecticut]], purporting to be the commercial entity "Research Associates of Bridgeport" without apparent connection to Yale University, to eliminate the university's prestige as a possible factor influencing the participants' behavior. In those conditions, obedience dropped to 47.5 percent, though the difference was not statistically significant.

Milgram also combined the effect of authority with that of [[conformity]]. In those experiments, the participant was joined by one or two additional "teachers" (also actors, like the "learner"). The behavior of the participants' peers strongly affected the results. In Experiment 17, when two additional teachers refused to comply, only four of 40 participants continued in the experiment. In Experiment 18, the participant performed a subsidiary task (reading the questions via microphone or recording the learner's answers) with another "teacher" who complied fully. In that variation, 37 of 40 continued with the experiment.

In addition to these procedural variations, Milgram’s work also illuminates the psychological processes highlighting obedience. Participants were observed frequently entering an “agentic state,” considering themselves as mere instruments executing the experimenter’s will and therefore weakening personal responsibility.
This shift was coupled with marked psychological evidence by nervous laughter, sweating, and internal conflict—which emphasizes the tension between hierarchical compliance and individual ethical standards. Such theoretical insights laid the basement for contemporary models of destructive obedience by revealing how authoritative contexts can reshape perceptions of agency and culpability.
<ref name=old>[http://www.stanleymilgram.com/oldanswers.html Milgram, old answers.] Accessed October 4, 2006.  {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090430145531/http://www.stanleymilgram.com/oldanswers.html |date=April 30, 2009 }}</ref>

===Replications===
[[File:A-Virtual-Reprise-of-the-Stanley-Milgram-Obedience-Experiments-pone.0000039.s011.ogv|thumb|A virtual replication of the experiment, with an [[avatar (computing)|avatar]] serving as the learner]]

Around the time of the release of ''Obedience to Authority'' in 1973–1974, a version of the experiment was conducted at [[La Trobe University]] in Australia. As reported by Perry in her 2012 book ''Behind the Shock Machine'', some of the participants experienced long-lasting psychological effects, possibly due to the lack of proper debriefing by the experimenter.<ref>{{cite news
| url = http://newsstore.smh.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac;jsessionid=6F7A8999B1F18DFBCBE929A700007932?sy=afr&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=1month&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=brs&cls=356&clsPage=1&docID=SMH1204261F69150R286
| title = Dark legacy left by shock tactics
| last = Elliott
| first = Tim
| date = April 26, 2012
| newspaper = Sydney Morning Herald
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304134154/http://newsstore.smh.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac;jsessionid=6F7A8999B1F18DFBCBE929A700007932?sy=afr&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=1month&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=brs&cls=356&clsPage=1&docID=SMH1204261F69150R286
| archive-date=2016-03-04
| url-status=dead
}}</ref>

In 2002, the British artist [[Rod Dickinson]] created ''The Milgram Re-enactment'', an exact reconstruction of parts of the original experiment, including the uniforms, lighting, and rooms used. An audience watched the four-hour performance through one-way glass windows.<ref>''History Will Repeat Itself: Strategies of Re-enactment in Contemporary (Media) Art and Performance'', ed. Inke Arns, Gabriele Horn, Frankfurt: Verlag, 2007</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.milgramreenactment.org/|title=The Milgram Re-enactment|access-date=June 10, 2008|archive-date=November 21, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181121191551/http://www.milgramreenactment.org/|url-status=live}}</ref> A video of this performance was first shown at the CCA Gallery in [[Glasgow]] in 2002.

A partial replication of the experiment was staged by British illusionist [[Derren Brown]] and broadcast on UK's [[Channel 4]] in ''[[The Heist (Derren Brown special)|The Heist]] ''(2006).<ref name=DerrenBrown>{{cite web|url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6GxIuljT3w| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211030/y6GxIuljT3w| archive-date=2021-10-30|title=The Milgram Experiment on YouTube| website=[[YouTube]]| date=July 15, 2007|access-date=December 21, 2008}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

Another partial replication of the experiment was conducted by Jerry M. Burger in 2006 and broadcast on the Primetime series ''Basic Instincts''. Burger noted that "current standards for the ethical treatment of participants clearly place Milgram's studies out of bounds." In 2009, Burger was able to receive approval from the [[institutional review board]] by modifying several of the experimental protocols, including halting the experiment after the 150-volt switch and having the learner directly tell the participant within a few seconds of the end of the experiment that they had not received any shocks.<ref name=BurgerWP2008>{{Cite journal|last=Burger|first=Jerry M.|title=Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?|journal=[[American Psychologist]]|year=2008|url=http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-64-1-1.pdf|doi=10.1037/a0010932|pmid=19209958|volume=64|issue=1|pages=1–11|hdl=10822/952419|citeseerx=10.1.1.631.5598|s2cid=207550934|access-date=October 22, 2018|archive-date=March 27, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190327051558/https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-64-1-1.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Burger found obedience rates virtually identical to those reported by Milgram in 1961–62, even while meeting current ethical regulations of informing participants. In addition, half the replication participants were female, and their rate of obedience was virtually identical to that of the male participants. Burger also included a condition in which participants first saw another participant refuse to continue. However, participants in this condition obeyed at the same rate as participants in the base condition.<ref>{{cite web|work=[[ABC News (United States)|ABC News]]|date=January 3, 2007|url=https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2765416&page=1|title=The Science of Evil|access-date=January 4, 2007|archive-date=January 4, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070104205716/http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2765416&page=1|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the 2010 French documentary ''[[Le Jeu de la Mort]]'' (''The Game of Death''), researchers recreated the Milgram experiment with an added critique of [[reality television]] by presenting the scenario as a [[game show]] pilot. Volunteers were given €40 and told that they would not win any money from the game, as this was only a trial. Only 16 of 80 "contestants" (teachers) chose to end the game before delivering the highest-voltage punishment.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124838091|title=Fake TV Game Show 'Tortures' Man, Shocks France|website=[[NPR]]|access-date=October 19, 2010|archive-date=October 24, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101024013236/http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124838091|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.france24.com/en/20100317-disturbing-tv-docu-game-tests-limits-small-screen-power-france-game-of-death |title=Fake torture TV 'game show' reveals willingness to obey |date=March 17, 2010 |access-date=March 18, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100323051311/http://www.france24.com/en/20100317-disturbing-tv-docu-game-tests-limits-small-screen-power-france-game-of-death |archive-date=March 23, 2010 }}</ref>

The experiment was performed on ''[[Dateline NBC]]'' on an episode airing April 25, 2010.

The [[Discovery Channel]] aired the "How Evil are You?" segment of ''[[Curiosity (TV series)|Curiosity]]'' on October 30, 2011.  The episode was hosted by [[Eli Roth]], who produced results similar to the original Milgram experiment, though the highest-voltage punishment used was 165 volts, rather than 450 volts. Roth added a segment in which a second person (an actor) in the room would defy the authority ordering the shocks, finding more often than not, the subjects would stand up to the authority figure in this case.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/videos/how-evil-are-you.htm |title=Curiosity: How evil are you? |access-date=April 17, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201125734/http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/videos/how-evil-are-you.htm |archive-date=2014-02-01 }}</ref>

===Other variations===
Charles Sheridan at the [[University of Missouri]] and Richard King at the [[University of California, Berkeley]] hypothesized that some of Milgram's subjects may have suspected that the victim was faking, so they repeated the experiment with a real victim: a "cute, fluffy puppy" that was given real, albeit apparently harmless, electric shocks. Their findings were similar to those of Milgram: Seven out of 13 of the male subjects and all 13 of the female subjects obeyed throughout. Many subjects showed high levels of distress during the experiment and some openly wept. In addition, Sheridan and King found that the duration for which the shock button was pressed decreased as the shocks got higher, meaning that for higher shock levels, subjects were more hesitant.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.holah.co.uk/files/sheridan_king_1972.pdf |title=Sheridan & King (1972) – Obedience to authority with an authentic victim, Proceedings of the 80th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association 7: 165–6. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180127071012/http://www.holah.co.uk/files/sheridan_king_1972.pdf |archive-date=January 27, 2018 |access-date=March 3, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Blass|1999|p=968}}</ref>

Another variation by psychologist Don Mixon in the early 1970s tested his theory that vagueness played a key role in the initial Milgram results. The maximum shock in the original experiment and all subsequent replications are simply labeled "XXX" as opposed to "lethal". He designed a replication of the experiment where it was implied that the shocks could be dangerous and cause harm to the learner saying, "The learner's health is irrelevant." Mixon found that obedience rates fell to a very low percentage.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Russell |first=Nestar |date=June 2014 |title=Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority "Relationship" Condition: Some Methodological and Theoretical Implications |journal=Social Sciences |language=en |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=194–214 |doi=10.3390/socsci3020194 |doi-access=free |issn=2076-0760}}</ref>