Research psychologist Stanley Milgram designed an "obedience experiment" in which the subject was ordered by a research psychologist to administer electric shocks to a second subject, a “learner”, when the learner gave a wrong answer. The Milgram Experiment's “learner” was not a subject, and did not get shocked, but was acting. The subject could not see the learner, but as the voltage increased, he could hear the learner scream in pain and beg to be released from the experiment.
To Stanley Milgram’s surprise, at the order of the researcher – the “authority figure” – two-thirds of subjects willingly continued to shock the learner, even as screams of pain became frantic and the learner begged for an end.
Obedience to Authority
As Stanley Milgram noted in a 1974 article, “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility... can become agents in a terrible destructive process... relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”
To answer the question, “Were the surprising results of the Milgram Experiment merely a reflection of 1950s / 1960s American culture, or would the same results occur if the experiment were held today?”, ABC’s Primetime recreated the Milgram Experiment in 2007.
Their results were almost identical to the original Milgram Experiment. 65% of the men and 73% of the women willingly continued to shock their learners by order of the experimenter, even when it was clear the learner was experiencing great pain.
Three Factors that Lead to Rebellion
As Milgram experimented with permutations of his obedience experiment, three factors in particular led to significant rebellions against the “authority figure”.
First, proximity of the researcher influenced whether a subject obeyed. When the authority figure was seated a few feet away, ordering the subject to continue, the subject usually complied. However, when the experimenter left the room completely and gave orders by telephone, “obedience dropped sharply” (Milgram, Obedience). Sixty-five percent of the subjects obeyed when the authority figure was in the room; the percentage dropped to 20.5% when the experimenter left the room.
Second, when another authority figure was introduced who disagreed with the first, Milgram Experiment subjects rebelled. When two arguing authority figures bickered in front of the subject, not a single subject would administer the highest level of shock (Obedience).
Third, when two additional “teachers” (in league with the researchers) were introduced to help the subject administer the shocks, and these new teachers rebelled, the subject also rebelled. When the two peers refused to continue, the subject nearly always (92.5% of the time) also refused to continue (Obedience).
What We Can Learn from the Milgram Obedience Experiments
In his book Obedience to Authority, Stanley Milgram concludes that even with a democratically elected government, our natural inclination to follow authority even at the expense of our own conscience is a serious problem. He points out that American slavery, the treatment of Native Americans, “the internment of Japanese Americans, [and] the use of napalm against civilians in Vietnam, all are harsh policies that originated in the authority of a democratic nation, and were responded to with the expected obedience” (Obedience). A distressed Milgram ends his book by stating that even people living in an industrialized, democratic society “cannot be counted on to insulate its citizens from brutality and inhumane treatment at the direction of malevolent authority” (Obedience).
Perhaps some glimmer of hope lies in Milgram's discovery that a group of people are more likely to stand up to an inhumane authority and win than one individual. However, even group rebellions against authority still must begin with one brave individual who acts on his or her conscience rather than simply following orders.
Sources:
Borge, Caroline. “Basic Instincts: The Science of Evil.” ABC Primetime, 1/3/07.
Milgram, Stanley. “The Perils of Obedience.” Harper’s Magazine, 1974.
Milgram, Stanley. Obedience to Authority. Harper & Row, New York: 1974.
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