Discussion post on obedience studies

Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 1963, Vol. 67, No. 4, 371-378

BEHAVIORAL STUDY OF OBEDIENCE1

STANLEY MILGRAM 2

Yale University

This article describes a procedure for the study of destructive obedience in the laboratory. It consists of ordering a naive S to administer increasingly more severe punishment to a victim in the context of a learning experiment. Punishment is administered by means of a shock generator with 30 graded switches ranging from Slight Shock to Danger: Severe Shock. The victim is a confederate of the E. The primary dependent variable is the maximum shock the S is willing to administer before he refuses to continue further. 26 Ss obeyed the experimental commands fully, and administered the highest shock on the generator. 14 Ss broke off the experiment at some point after the victim protested and refused to provide further answers. The procedure created extreme levels of nervous tension in some Ss. Profuse sweating, trembling, and stuttering were typical expressions of this emotional disturbance. One un- expected sign of tension—yet to be explained—was the regular occurrence of nervous laughter, which in some Ss developed into uncontrollable seizures. The variety of interesting behavioral dynamics observed in the experiment, the reality of the situation for the S, and the possibility of parametric varia- tion within the framework of the procedure, point to the fruitfulness of further study.

Obedience is as basic an element in the structure of social life as one can point to. Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living, and it is only the man dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond, through defiance or submission, to the commands of others. Obedience, as a determinant of behavior, is of particular relevance to our time. It has been reliably established that from 1933-45 millions of innocent persons were systematically slaugh- tered on command. Gas chambers were built, death camps were guarded, daily quotas of corpses were produced with the same ef- ficiency as the manufacture of appliances. These inhumane policies may have originated in the mind of a single person, but they could only be carried out on a massive scale if a very large number of persons obeyed orders.

Obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political pur- pose. It is the dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority. Facts of recent history and observation in daily life suggest

1 This research was supported by a grant (NSF G-17916) from the National Science Foundation. Exploratory studies conducted in 1960 were sup- ported by a grant from the Higgins Fund at Yale University. The research assistance of Alan C. Elms and Jon Wayland is gratefully acknowledged.

2 Now at Harvard University.

that for many persons obedience may be a deeply ingrained behavior tendency, indeed, a prepotent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct. C. P. Snow (1961) points to its importance when he writes:

When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion. If you doubt that, read William Shirer’s “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.” The German Officer Corps were brought up in the most rigorous code of obedience . . . in the name of obedience they were party to, and assisted in, the most wicked large scale actions in the history of the world [p. 24].

While the particular form of obedience dealt with in the present study has its ante- cedents in these episodes, it must not be thought all obedience entails acts of aggres- sion against others. Obedience serves numer- ous productive functions. Indeed, the very life of society is predicated on its existence. Obedience may be ennobling and educative and refer to acts of charity and kindness, as well as to destruction.

General Procedure

A procedure was devised which seems useful as a tool for studying obedience (Milgram, 1961). It consists of ordering

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a naive subject to administer electric shock to a victim. A simulated shock generator is used, with 30 clearly marked voltage levels that range from IS to 450 volts. The instru- ment bears verbal designations that range from Slight Shock to Danger: Severe Shock. The responses of the victim, who is a trained confederate of the experimenter, are stand- ardized. The orders to administer shocks are given to the naive subject in the context of a “learning experiment” ostensibly set up to study the effects of punishment on memory. As the experiment proceeds the naive subject is commanded to administer increasingly more intense shocks to the victim, even to the point of reaching the level marked Danger: Severe Shock. Internal resistances become stronger, and at a certain point the subject refuses to go on with the experi- ment. Behavior prior to this rupture is con- sidered “obedience,” in that the subject com- plies with the commands of the experimenter. The point of rupture is the act of disobedi- ence. A quantitative value is assigned to the subject’s performance based on the maximum intensity shock he is willing to administer before he refuses to participate further. Thus for any particular subject and for any par- ticular experimental condition the degree of obedience may be specified with a numerical value. The crux of the study is to systemati- cally vary the factors believed to alter the degree of obedience to the experimental commands.

The technique allows important variables to be manipulated at several points in the experiment. One may vary aspects of the source of command, content and form of com- mand, instrumentalities for its execution, target object, general social setting, etc. The problem, therefore, is not one of designing in- creasingly more numerous experimental con- ditions, but of selecting those that best illumi- nate the process of obedience from the socio- psychological standpoint.

Related Studies

The inquiry bears an important relation to philosophic analyses of obedience and author- ity (Arendt, 1958; Friedrich, 1958; Weber, 1947), an early experimental study of obedience by Frank (1944), studies in “au- thoritarianism” (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik,

Levinson, & Sanford, 1950; Rokeach, 1961), and a recent series of analytic and empirical studies in social power (Cartwright, 1959). It owes much to the long concern with suggestion in social psychology, both in its normal forms (e.g., Binet, 1900) and in its clinical manifestations (Charcot, 1881). But it derives, in the first instance, from direct observation of a social fact; the individual who is commanded by a legitimate authority ordinarily obeys. Obedience comes easily and often. It is a ubiquitous and indispensable feature of social life.