What is the motivation behind Stanley Milgrams experimental study of obedience?
The Milgram experiment is a famous psychological study exploring the willingness of individuals to follow the orders of authorities when those orders conflict with the individual’s own moral judgment. Psychologist Stanley Milgram began the obedience study at Yale in 1961, shortly after the start of the trial of Nazi war criminal Albert Eichmann. Milgram’s research was documented as “Behavioral Study on obedience” in 1963 in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. Although the researcher’s name will always be associated with the obedience study, Milgram is also known for research with less troubling implications, the small-world experiment. In 1967, the psychologist developed a model of distribution to demonstrate the six degrees of separation phenomenon, according to which any person on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of no more than five intermediaries. The studyMilgram said he developed his research to answer the question: "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders?" In the experiment, subjects thought that they were administering electrical shocks to “learners” who failed to respond correctly. In reality, the learners were actually part of the research team. The experiment's subjects were told they would be operating a shock generator with gradations ranging from Slight Shock to Danger: Severe Shock. Despite the "learners" who acted as if they were experiencing clear signs of discomfort and distress, the majority of subjects continued to follow instructions to deliver shocks -- even the maximum shock, which could be fatal. More recent examinations of Milgram’s research by Gina Perry indicate that only about half of the participants were fully convinced that they were delivering shocks and that 66 percent of those participants refused to comply. Nevertheless, even that level of compliance has troubling implications for human behavior under unethical authority. Applications of the Milgram experiment in businessIn business, implications of the study have relevance for a number of areas including human resource management. For example, candidates for positions of authority should be taught counter-measures to blind obedience. Such counter-measures include the encouragement of critical thinking supported by a degree of autonomy among employees. The Milgram experiment is also relevant to software development and AI ethics. In the case of the latter, AI might, for example, be programmed with a code of conduct and with weighted priorities that would supersede any conflicting instructions. This was last updated in July 2019 Continue Reading About Milgram experiment (Behavioral Study on obedience)
Related TermsaccountabilityAccountability is an assurance that an individual or an organization is evaluated on its performance or behavior related to ... See complete definitionlearning experience platform (LXP)A learning experience platform (LXP) is an AI-driven peer learning experience platform delivered using software as a service (... See complete definitionParkinson's law of triviality (bikeshedding)Parkinson's law of triviality is an observation about the human tendency to devote a great deal of time to unimportant details, ... See complete definitionWord of the Day fixed wirelessFixed wireless networking refers to the operation of wireless devices in fixed locations such as homes and offices. Three decades before Christopher Browning completed his study of Police Battalion 101 (see reading, Reserve Police Battalion 101), a psychologist at Yale University named Stanley Milgram also tried to better understand why so many individuals participated in the brutality and mass murder of the Holocaust. In the 1960s, Milgram conducted an experiment designed “to see how far a person will proceed in a concrete and measurable situation in which he is ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim.” Joseph Dimow was one of the people who unknowingly took part in that experiment. In 2004, he described the experience:
In fact, the “learner” was an actor hired by Milgram. Dimow, the “teacher,” was the person Milgram and his team were studying. Social scientists Nestar Russell and Robert Gregory explain how the experiment was set up:
After a session of the experiment was complete, Milgram’s team revealed to the participant that he or she had been deceived, and they brought the “learner” into the room so that the participant could see that he had not been harmed. Regardless, this deception, in which the subject of an experiment is tricked into believing that he or she is harming another individual, is widely considered to be unethical today. At the time, when Milgram described this experiment to a group of 39 psychiatrists, the psychiatrists predicted that one participant in 1,000 would continue until he or she delivered the most severe shock, 450 volts. In reality, 62.5% of participants did. By varying the setup of his experiment, Milgram observed a relationship between the distance separating the teacher and learner and the willingness of the teacher to generate more severe shocks. When the teacher was required to touch the learner by forcing the learner’s hand onto the plate from which the shock was delivered, 30% of the teachers proceeded to the most severe shock. When the teacher did not touch the learner but remained in the same room, obedience to go all the way increased to 40%. When the teachers were placed in a separate room from which they could hear the voice of the learner but not see him, obedience increased to 62.5%. When the learner did not speak but only banged on the wall to indicate distress, obedience increased to 65%. When the teacher could neither see nor hear the learner at all, obedience reached almost 100%. Milgram tested other variations in which the distance between the experimenter and the teacher changed. He found that the farther the distance between experimenter and teacher, the less likely the teacher was to obey. Milgram concluded that the experiment forced the teacher to decide between two stressful situations: inflicting pain on another person and disobeying authority. The closeness of the learner and the experimenter to the teacher affected the teacher’s choice: “In obeying, the participants were mainly concerned about alleviating their own, rather than the learner’s, stressful situation.” In interpreting the implications of Milgram’s research, many, including Milgram himself, focused on the effect of physical closeness between perpetrator and victim on the willingness of one person to harm another. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman writes:
But others who study Milgram’s work argue that focusing primarily on physical distance leaves out other important factors suggested by the experiment. Russell and Gregory argue that “emotional distance” is an equally important factor. In their analysis of the Milgram experiments, they write:
Russell and Gregory also believe that the way the harm is inflicted would affect the willingness of individuals to do it. In their analysis of the Milgram experiments, they point out that the shock generator was a technological and indirect way for the teacher to inflict pain; in most variations, teachers flicked a switch rather than using “direct physical force.” Russell and Gregory ask: “How far would Milgram’s participants have gone if they had been required personally to beat, bludgeon, or whip the learner, ultimately to the point of unconsciousness or beyond?” Milgram’s experiments provide insights that help us understand the choices and motivations of many who participated in the Nazi programs of persecution and mass murder. But many historians and social scientists who have studied the Holocaust say that Milgram’s work does not fully explain the behavior of perpetrators in the Holocaust. While many acted in response to orders from authority figures, some perpetrators chose to go beyond the orders they were given. Others chose to act out of their own hatred or for their own material gain without being asked to do so. Even within the German government and military, leaders and bureaucrats took initiative and devised creative methods to achieve larger goals, not in response to orders but in an effort to “work toward the Führer” (see reading, Working Toward the Führer in Chapter 5). |