Behavioral Study of Obedience
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral Study of Obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), 371-378.
Arhe Vaninetti
Research Methods and Statistics, PSY301, Pacific University, Oregon
April 4, 2023
Milgram’s 1963 study was conducted as social commentary on the strength of obedience, and its connections to recent atrocities in the author’s era. Particularly, Milgram made connections between the fascist state of Nazi Germany and the element of fear-driven compliance. The study utilized a technique to test obedience that involved a naive subject administering false shocks to an actor, while the researcher continually pushed the subject to administer higher powered shocks. With this, the subject was increasing the power level from light shock to “XXX” level shock meant to injure or kill the actor.
The subjects for this study were 50 men between the ages of 20 and 40 years-old sourced from the surrounding communities of Yale University. The subjects had a variety of education levels and careers, and all were compensated for their time. For this study, deception was required, and the subjects believed that they were helping with a study on memory and learning.
Once the subject was brought to the lab, the researcher would inform the subject and the actor about the association between learning and punishment, and then ask if either wanted to volunteer to be the learner. Through a rigged drawing, the actor was always picked to be the learner. A real, sample shock of 45 volts would be administered to the actor through a wire attached to his wrist, both to establish realism and to give the actor a basis of understanding for the behavior that he would need to act. After this initial shock, the subject would be told to move to a higher switch on the machine, to ensure that the actor didn’t get shocked again, and so that the subject was explicitly aware of what he was doing. The subject would read from a prewritten list of questions, and when the actor inevitably answered wrong, the subject was instructed to shock the actor.
In all conditions, the actor would make a noise of pain in response to the false shock. After a shock level of 300 volts, the actor began to make spoken responses to the false shock, and also pounds on the wall. After the 300 volt shock, the actor refuses to answer the questions, and the experimenter presses the subject to continue the shocks at the absence of an answer (i.e., “It is absolutely essential that you continue”). The subject was measured on a scale of 0 to 30 on their obedience, with 0 indicating that the subject would not administer even the first shock, and 30 being the highest level of shock possible (“XXX”).
Once the experiment was concluded, the debriefing procedures included a friendly reconciliation was made between the actor and subject to reduce any tensions that arose as a result of the experiment.
In the results, almost all of the subjects had accepted the situation as reality, rating the perceived pain of the shocks a mean 13.43 out of 14, with 14 indicating “extremely painful”. There were 26 subjects who completed the experiment and reached the shock level of “XXX,” but some subjects refused to go higher than shock level 300 (when the experiementer began to press the subject to continue). For some of the subjects that reached shock level “XXX,” they protested about having to continue, while others showed little signs of stress. One of the confounds established by the authors was the location of the research, as Yale University has a prestigious reputation, and the subjects may have assured themselves that the resaerch was ethical if it was completed by Yale. Secondly, the subject may have felt a sense of obligation to continue for the sake of the experiementor or the study, or possibly for the actor.
Overall, this study could not be replicated today ethically, but it is possible that an inverse situation may be evaluated where the subjects are discouraged from assisting someone on a smaller scale.