The Milgram Experiment: Method, Results, Replicas

He Milgram experiment Were a series of tests that served to study obedience to authority.

The precursor of this series of experiments was the social psychologist Stanley Milgram (New York, 1933-1984) that belonged to Yale University and made them around the 60s, after the massive crimes that characterized the Nazi holocaust of World War II.

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Specifically, in 1961 Milgram wondered if all the participants in these crimes acted motu proprio or, they did it because they were following orders. All these matters came to Milgram following the sentence of Adolf Eichmamn (Nazi lieutenant colonel) sentenced to death for crimes against humanity.

Milgram intended to evaluate whether people are willing to obey orders simply because they were imposed by a boss or superior. What is really controversial about these experiments is that these orders meant doing harm to the other person and even putting the life of the other into play.

Finally, Milgram published in 1963 a study in the magazine Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology Under the title 'Obedience Behavior Study' and a decade later, in 1974 he summarized and published all of these experiments in his book 'Obedience to Authority'. An experimental point of view.

Next, we will know the details of the experiment, as well as the results obtained and the conclusions they found after further research and analysis.

You may also like This list of experiments in the history of psychology .

Milgram Method

The work team of Professor Milgram, through newspaper ads New Haven , Requested volunteers. This announcement was really a hoax because, really, they were invited to participate in a study of memory and learning that supposedly was being done from their department.

The sample consisted of 40 men between 20 and 50 years of different social groups and with different levels of education. These included people who had just finished primary school and others had obtained their doctorate. All of them received four dollars (this corresponds to about $ 28 today) plus travel and subsistence expenses.

These participants were explained that within the research there were three roles: the researcher (Milgram himself or one of his colleagues, dressed in a white coat and acting with certain airs of superiority), the teacher and the student.

Participants were received in pairs, one volunteer and the other part of the Milgram team. Upon receiving them, they were explained that the department was studying the relationship between memory and learning.

Then, through a series of trick drawings, all the volunteer participants were given the role of teacher, since the student roles were played by Milgram's collaborators, they pretended that they had taken that place in the draw.

Then they would come in pairs in the laboratory. That is, a teacher and a student. The room was divided by a glass module and each of them sat on one side. The student sat in a chair that resembled the electric chair and, in addition, was tied in order to prevent it from moving too much.

Also, electrodes were placed all over his body through which he would receive the discharges and was anointed with cream so that he would not suffer burns. Also, he was informed that the discharges could cause a deep pain, but that would not leave lasting sequels, nor irreversible damages.

All this was explained to the student, the teacher in front and listening to all this information.

After these explanations, the teacher took a seat in a chair that had a control panel in which appeared the different loads that could send to the student's chair. To begin with, as a test, both received a real discharge of 45 volts. In this way, the researchers ensured that teachers would know what students would feel when receiving a download.

The experiment was about the teacher asking the student a series of questions. If it failed, the teacher should press a discharge and increase the intensity of the same as the student increased the number of failures.

The machine that controlled the discharges had 30 keys ordered from minor to major discharge. It started with 15 volts and, summing 15 at 15 volts, ended up with the maximum voltage: 450 volts. In addition, each of them had a label in which appeared the intensity of the discharge. For example, in the first one put"light discharge"and the one of greater intensity (450 volts) appeared"danger: severe discharge".

When the investigator finished explaining to the teacher the whole mechanism and functioning of the test, it offered him a list with pairs of words that the teacher should ask the student.

The teacher then read the question to the student and then listed four possible answers. The student had to press one of the four buttons within his reach. If the answer was correct, the teacher had to move on to the next one. Otherwise, you should manage a download that would increase in intensity based on the number of incorrect answers.

What really happened is that the teacher thought that he was administering downloads to the student when in fact, the pain reaction of this one was totally simulated, for that they had been chosen the collaborators of Milgram.

As the teacher increased the charge of volts, the student began to scream and complain, even shouting that they were people suffering from heart disease and asked to end the experiment. When the 270 volts were reached, they screamed in agony and if they reached the 300 volt charge, the pupils pretended to be in a state before the coma. Actually, all these screams were not happening, they were recordings.

When they reached the 75-volt button, teachers began to be nervous about their students' complaints and showed a strong interest in completing the experiment, although the researcher showed himself to be authoritarian and forced them to continue with the test.

When they reached 135 volts, it was common for teachers to stop and question the researcher the actual purpose of the experiment. Some of them wanted to stop the test and even insisted that they were willing to give back the money they had been offered to participate.

If the teacher wanted to end the test, the investigator orders it to continue. The answers that they had to give by order were the following:

• "Go on, please!"
• "The experiment needs to continue!"
• "It is absolutely essential that you continue!"
• "You have no choice! It must continue!"

If after the latter, the teacher refused to continue the test, the experiment was over.

In other cases, teachers continued to assert that they were not held responsible for the consequences that discharges might have on their students. There were even some responses of nervous laughter to the screams of pain and suffering of the students caused by the high load of the discharge.

The experiment could also end if the master had managed to handle the maximum load and pressed the button up to three times.

Results

Prior to the completion of the experiments, Milgram dared to expose the results that he and his team would obtain. They estimated that the average voltage of downloads would be about 130 volts and that the teacher's obedience to the investigator would be 0%. Also, they contemplated the possibility that among the volunteer participants there was some sadist who was able to apply the button of greater voltage.

The surprise that took Milgram and all his equipment was to verify that 65% of the teachers got to apply up to 450 volts to their students, although some of them did not seem to feel comfortable doing it.

Also, it was curious the fact that none of them stopped before the 300 volts since, at this moment, the student showed that it began to lose his life.

Apparently, the behavior of the volunteer participants did not reveal that they were sadistic people since in the administration of the voltage loads they showed concern for what they were doing and, in addition, they were nervous (they were removed, they nailed the flesh , etc).

At the end of the experiment, the teachers were informed that, in fact, the students were actors and that they had not suffered any damage. The researchers said that the teachers were relieved when they told him. They were also asked if they were aware of the pain they had caused in students and on a scale of 1 to 14, with 14 being the highest level of pain, the mean was at level 13.

The studies that were carried out later and the exhaustive analysis of the different profiles of all participants showed that the teachers whose students were of a similar social context stopped the experiment.

Replicas of the experiment

In order to know if the results obtained would be replicated, Milgram and his team decided to repeat the experiment in other countries and with different people.

On this occasion, another of the variables they studied was the distance between the teacher and the student. The results showed that the more distant the pupil of the teacher was, the higher the researcher's obedience index.

In other cases, the administration of the discharge was through the teacher taking the student's hand and approaching a plate.

In these cases, 30% of participants reached the final level of the discharge, compared to 40% who did so under other circumstances. Although the percentage is lower, this data is equally surprising since in this situation is added the variable that the teacher must have physical contact with the student so that the student receives the discharge.

Under other circumstances studied, the participant would receive support from a partner who would refuse to continue the experiment. There was a 10% decrease in obedience.

When that partner, instead of refusing, showed support to the researcher, a percentage of 93% of teachers who got to use the 450 volts were reached.

Other variables that were studied in the replicates of the experiment were on the presence of two experimenters and when they gave opposite orders. In these cases, obedience was nil. In the event that the principal investigator left the room and left a colleague, there was also a 20% decrease in the level of teacher obedience.

The gender variable was also considered and, when comparing the levels of obedience between men and women, it was established that there were no significant differences.

Subsequent reactions

Milgram himself and his team were totally surprised by the results. At that time, ethics were questioned in scientific experimentation due to the high levels of emotional tension experienced by the participants, although the team argued that it was they who decided to continue.

Today, such an experiment would be almost impossible to carry out and would be considered immoral because they made participants believe that the lives of people were at stake, in addition to giving false slogans to the participants.

Indeed, after this series of experiments, the scientific community put a series of norms and ethical criteria to avoid that this type of research could be reopened.

In the multiple questionnaires that were administered to the participants, at the end, they were asked about their level of satisfaction for having participated in the experiment. In fact, 84% of them said they were very happy after participating. In addition, many of them showed their gratitude to the own Milgram.

After the experiments, Milgram created a documentary film in which he demonstrated the experiment and the results obtained. Today it is almost impossible to find one of these copies.

Explanations

Milgram's own explanation of the astonishing results obtained from his studies is that the subjects entered a state that he called the"agent state."

This state was characterized by the fact that individuals (in this case, teachers) perceived themselves as agents of an authority which they themselves had attributed as legitimate.

People are typically considered autonomous and proactive in many situations and contexts, but when they enter a hierarchical structure, they tend to change their perception of themselves. Among other things, they can discharge responsibility for their actions on people with a higher rank.

Although these subjects had agreed to participate voluntarily, they had easy to identify which was the legitimate authority: the investigators. These, besides being authoritarian, wore a white coat. All these characteristics can trigger obedience to authority.

In addition, there are other factors that help explain the results. One was the orders the researchers told the teachers when they refused to continue the experiment. These seemed to indicate to the teachers that the correct thing at that moment was to continue with the experiment in spite of the pain that could be provoking.

Also, all these participants (like most individuals) had social norms Who talk about not being hurt others. Also, that they should be helped when they need it. When under the situation of the experiment, they felt a great dilemma on whether to continue, or not, with the anxiety that brought them.

Another mechanism that intervenes is to come to think if the alleged victim, the student, deserves the downloads he is receiving.

If a person comes to think that the victim deserves such pain, it will help alleviate the suffering caused by the discharge.

There may also be a tendency to blame the victim and this will contribute to the person feeling more protected.

References

1. [Links] The dangers of obedience. The Milgram experiment. Psicopedia.org. Website: psicopedia.org.
2. The Milgram Experiment: Obedience to Authority. Explorable. Website: explorable.com.
3. Encyclopedia Free in Spanish. The Milgram experiment. Website: encyclopedia.us.es.
4. Milgram, Stanley. (1963). "Behavioral Study of Obedience". Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67, 371-378.