Case Study: Milgram Shock Experiment

       Milgram Shock Obedience Experiment

The Milgram shock experiment, conducted by Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist was an obedience test evaluating how people respond to authority figures. The test would determine how ridiculous of a request the common people would be willing to do in fear of authority. The idea was inspired by the Nazi soldiers of WWII following orders from the higher ups and whether they can truly be the ones to blame.

       The procedure was quite simple; two male participants would be selected, one would be in a room with switches that activated a generator at varying voltage levels, and the other would always be an associate of Milgram (Mr. Wallace) strapped to the electric chair with generator receiving the "shock." The varying levels of voltage ranged from 15 volts (low) to 450 volts (fatal). The participants would draw straws to determine who would be the learner and who was the teacher, with the learner rigged to be the associate every time. The learner would be told a list of words and had to repeat back the words in the specific order and would receive a "shock" each time he was wrong. For the sake of the experiment, the learner would purposefully get the answers mostly wrong. If the learner did not obey or refused to listen they were asked four times to continue, the last one being "you have no other choice but to continue."

       
The experiment resulted in 65% of the 40 male participants reaching the highest level of voltage (fatal, 450 volts), however, all the participants continued past 300 volts (dangerously high). All of the participants were not told until the end that the learner did not receive any shock even though screaming could be heard throughout it's entirety. The test showed people will obey and hurt/kill an innocent person in response to authority. The obedience being trained into us from our parents, school, and work environments. The main ethical issues revolving around this experiment involved exposing volunteers to an extreme level of stress that had the potential to scar the volunteer. Also, the participants were discouraged to stop the experiment using four verbal cues to continue which is illegal involving psychological experiments. As horrific and intense of an experiment as this was or could have been, it did provide an answer to the question and perhaps the Nazi soldiers were in a similar predicament. 

Source:
               McLeod, Saul. “Saul McLeod.” Milgram Experiment | Simply Psychology, 1 Jan. 1970, www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html.