During the sixties, some Social Psychologists became interested in how ordinary citizens in Nazi Germany were turned into cold-blooded killers merely ‘following orders’. A decade after Asch’s studies Stanley Milgram sought to increase our understanding of obedience.

To do so Milgram advertised a memory test. When participants turned up they were introduced to a young man in a lab coat and a middle-aged accountant also taking part in the experiment (actually one of Milgram’s assistants). The experimenter explained to both that the study was looking into the effects of punishment on learning. They picked a name from a hat as to who would be the teacher… rigged of course.

The accomplice was strapped into a chair, which would deliver an electric shock every time the teacher flicked a switch. A small shock was given to the teacher, before beginning, to convince him of the reality of the experiment.

Then he left for the Teacher’s room. Every time the Learner made a mistake in responding, or failed to respond, to the Teacher’s question… the Teacher was to give him an increasingly powerful electric shock by flicking a switch. Of course this was all staged, in the learners room was a tape recording.

Initially there is little response from the Learner that develops into pleas to escape the experiment to agonized screams to refusal to continue to eerie silence.

If the teacher should waver the experimenter had a script of four responses;

There were also reassurances that the shocks although painful, will not cause any permanent damage.

Before conducting the experiment Milgram polled 40 Psychiatrists as to what they thought would happen. They predicted less than 1% of participants would administer through to the highest and potentially fatal level.

What do you predict, what percentage of participants would be willing to kill someone because an experimenter tells them to, even when the fellow participant pleads to be let out?

Next: Shocking Obedience To Authority

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