Learner was placed in different room to the participants. The generator has switches with labels such as “slight shock”, “danger” etc. and went from 15 volts to 450 volts.
Participants were required to read word pairs such as blue-box etc. and then read out key word and four possible pairs. The learner had 4 buttons and had to click on the right one. Each successive wrong answer led to the volts being increased. As the shocks increased the learner started giving different responses (120volts he shouted “shocks were becoming painful”, 150volts he shouted “I don’t want to continue anymore”, 270volts were agonising screams,300volts learner refused to answer and the experimenter ordered participants to give the shocks).The responses were all the same in order to get fair reaction from participant.
If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:
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Please continue.
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The experiment requires that you continue.
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It is absolutely essential that you continue.
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You have no other choice, you must go on.
Results
26 of the 40 men who took part in this study and 26 of the 40 women who were tested went to the end. 100% went to 300volts and 60% went to 450volts.
Conclusion
Social influence is strong and people obey orders even when this causes them distress.
The Milgram experiment can be backed by the Meeus and Raaijmakers (1985). This took place in a university and they had 39 volunteers which is roughly the same amount Milgram used. The volunteer would administer a test; in which they would were asked to make negative remarks to the applicants regarding how they were getting on with the test. These negative remarks clearly gave distress to the ‘applicant’ who was a helper.
The Meeus and Raaijmakers clearly back the Milgram as on both participants obeyed the experimenter as he had the authority/power
The Milgram experiment was also replicated a number of times with different variations. One variation was when it was conducted in a run-down office, although obedience levels decreased still quite a number of people reached 300volts.
This theory has lots of practical application, in that it helps explain very bizarre behaviours like the soldiers who are normal people, but end up committing massacres on a village or torture prisoners as they are following orders.
However this theory to a small extent shows large portion of the population are bound to respect anyone with authority. It does not deal with other external factors such as the personality of the participant and the fact it was done in Yale the obedience could increase, this is proven when the obedience decreased when it was done in a run-down office.
This experiment has is very controversial in term of the ethics. They were no consent as the participants were deceived and told it was a memory test. The participants were allowed to withdraw but Milgram made it very hard with his responses. This experiment was carried out in 1963 at that time the CCCDDW were not introduced. At the end of the experiment he debriefed the participants, most were glad they took part in the experiment.
I conclude by saying the Milgram experiment proves people are willing to listen and obey anyone with power/authority and this helps describe various actions which surprises people.
