Milgram obedience experiment

Meaning: Stanley Milgram's studies in the early 1960s tested how far ordinary people would go in obeying an authority figure. A participant, the "teacher," was told by an experimenter to give increasingly strong shocks to a "learner" (a confederate) for wrong answers. The shocks were fake, but the participant believed them. In the baseline version, about 65% of participants went to the maximum 450 V despite the learner's protests. The result is used to show the power of situational factors, such as perceived legitimate authority, over personal disposition.

On the MCAT: Passages describe variations and ask which change would raise or lower obedience. Obedience tends to fall when orders come by phone instead of in person, when the learner is closer, when the setting seems less prestigious, or when other teachers refuse. Questions also use the study for research ethics: deception, distress, and the need for debriefing.

Common confusion: Milgram tested obedience to a direct command from an authority. Asch's line studies tested conformity to peer pressure with no command, and Zimbardo's prison study concerned social roles. Also, the learner was not actually shocked.