My trial lesson

• math

The Milgram Experiment

Presented by: Rebekah Thomas

Do you believe everyone should obey their authority figure? Why or why not?

Stanley Milgram

• 1933-1984
• Social psychologist at Yale University
• Studied obedience and created Milgram Experiment in 1961

He 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. Milgram’s experiments suggested that it was not necessary to invoke “evil” as a concept to explain why so many ordinary people do terrible things. Instead his work, and that of other social psychologists, suggested that much of what we do, we do

automatically

65% obeyed the experimenter

Variations

• Experimenter called away at beginning - 20% obedience
• Moved to run down offices instead of Yale - 47.5% obedience
• Assistant used to shock - 92.5% obedience
• Forced learner's hand down - 30% obedience
• Other participants refused to obey - 10% obedience
• Instructed by telephone - 20.5% obedience

Deception

Protection of Participants

Right to Withdrawal

Debrief

Participants believed they were shocking a real person, and were unaware the learner was a confederate of Milgram's.

Participants were exposed to extremely stressful situations that may have the potential to cause psychological harm.

Participants were given four verbal prods that discouraged withdrawal: 1) Please continue. 2) The experiment requires that you continue. 3) It is absolutely essential that you continue. 4) You have no other choice, you must go on.

Milgram talked to participants after the experiment and disclosed its true nature. He also followed up after a period of time to ensure that they came to no harm.

Autonomous State

People direct their actions and take responsibility for the results

Agentic State

People allow others to direct their actions and pass responsibility on to the authority

1. The person giving the orders is perceived as being qualified to direct other people’s behavior. That is, they are seen as legitimate.

2. The person being ordered about is able to believe that the authority will accept responsibility for what happens.

Agency theory says that people will obey an authority when they believe that the authority will take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. 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.

 "Evil often occurs simply

because we do not question our acts

enough; instead our rationale arises from

our trust in authority figures who are in

'charge'."
- Thomas Blass

Give an example of a situation where you should not obey an authority figure.

References

• https://allthatsinteresting.com/milgram-experiment
• https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/stanley-milgram
• https://www1.psych.purdue.edu/~willia55/120/LectureSocialF10.pdf
• https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/331/7512/Reviews.full.pdf