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Behavioural Study of Obedience

Stanley Milgram

Yale University

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

Obedience is an element of social interactions.  Some system of authority is a required of all communal living, and it is only the individual that lives in isolation who does not have to respond to the orders of others.  Obedience, as a determinant of behaviour, is of particular interest in the time of this study.  It has been reliably established that from 1933 to 1945 millions of people were systematically slaughtered on the command of others.  Gas chambers were built, death camps were guarded, daily quotas of corpses were produced with the same efficiency as the manufacture of domestic appliances.  The policy that began this nightmare may have originated in the mind of a single person, but they could have only been carried out if a large number of people obeyed orders.
Obedience is the psychological mechanism that binds people to systems of authority.  Facts of recent history and observation in daily life suggest that for many people obedience may be a deeply ingrained behavioural tendency.  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 rigourous 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. [24]

While the particular form of obedience dealt with in this study has, at its base, the sorts of episodes described above, it must not be assumed that all obedience entails an act of aggression against others.  Obedience serves numerous productive and protective functions.  Indeed, the very life of a society has it as its foundations.  Obedience may be ennobling and educative and refer to acts of charity and kindness, as well as to destruction.
Method

Despite what many people believe, this study is not an experiment.  For it to be an experiment, it will need an Independent Variable, that changes.  Find it, if you can.
No, what we have here is an Observation, or more correctly it is a Controlled Observation as all of the participants went through the same procedure.
Sample

The sample of this study was 40 men, drawn from the local area, aged between 20 and 50 years, after responding to an advert and direct mails shots.

Advert

The experimenter was played by a 31 year old high school Biology teacher.  His manner was impassive and he appeared to be somewhat stern.
The "victim" was played by a 47 year old accountant, trained for the role.  He was of Irish-American stock, who most observers found mild mannered and likable.
Procedure

One participant and the victim (an accomplice) took part in each trial of the study.  A pretext had to be manufactured to justify the giving of electric shocks by the participant.  This was covered by the introduction given to each pair, as they started.  It began with a general discussion about punishment and learning and continued with a "script":

But actually, we know very little about the effect of punishment on learning, because almost no truly scientific studies have been made of it in human beings.
For instance, we do not know how much punishment is best for learning - and we don't know how much difference it makes as to who is giving the punishment, whether an adult learns best from a younger or older person than himself - or many things of that sort.
So in this study we are bringing together a number of adults of different occupations and ages.  And we are asking some of them to be teachers and some to be learners.
We want to find out just what effect different people have on each other as teachers and learners, and also what effect punishment will have  on learning in this situation.
Therefore, I'm going to ask one of you to be the teacher and the other one to be the learner.
Does either of you have a preference?

The next thing to happen was that a draw was held, with drawing pieces of paper from a "hat".  The participant would draw firs, and his paper would say "Teacher", the victim would draw next, and his paper would say "Teacher", but he would say "Learner".  The draw was fixed.  After the draw, the learner was taken to an adjacent room and the learner was strapped in to an "electric chair".  The experimenter explained that the straps were used to "prevent excessive movement" while he was being shocked.  But it also meant that he could not escape.  An electrode was attached to the learners wrist, and some gel was put on "to avoid blisters and burns".  It was explained that the electrode was connected to the machine in the adjacent room.
In order to improve the credibility, the experimenter said, in response to a question by the learner: "Although the shocks can be extremely painful, they cause no permanent damage."

Milgram's victimVictim being strapped in

The Learning Task
The task that was set for the learner was a "paired association task."  The teacher would read a list of paired words, to test how well the pairs of words had been learned the teacher would read out the first word of the pair and then would read a list of four words, including the word that was the pair of the first word read.  The learner had to press a button that would indicate the position of the word in the list.  This was also shown to the teacher who could then tell if the answer was correct or incorrect.

The Shock Generator
The instrument panel consists of 30 lever switches set in a horizontal line.  Each of them is clearly labelled with a voltage designation that ranges from 15 volts to 450 volts, with a 15 volt gap between each switch.  In addition, the following verbal  designations are clearly indicated for groups of four switches going from left or right: Slight Shock; Moderate Shock; Strong Shock; Very Strong Shock; Intense Shock; Extreme Intensity Shock, Danger, Severe Shock.  The two remaining switches were marked with XXXX.
When a switch is pressed, a pilot light corresponding to each switch illuminates in bright red, an electric buzzing is heard, and electric blue light labelled "voltage energiser" flashes, the dial on the voltage meter swings to the right, and various relay clicks are heard.
The upper left corner has a label which reads "Shock Generator, Type ZLB, Dyson Instrument Company, Waltham, Mass, Output 15 Volts to 450 Volts."
Details of the machine were carefully thought through to give the impression of authenticity.  The panel was engraved by precision industrial engravers, and all components were of high quality.  No participant in the study gave any indication that they thought this machine was a fake.

Shock machine

Sample Shock
The teacher is told that it is only fair that if he is giving the learner shocks that he should get a sample of what the machine can do.  The shock is always 45 Volts, as the machine is equipped with batteries capable of delivering 45 Volts, and is given by pressing the third switch.  The shock is applied to the teacher's wrist.  This procedure give the teacher further evidence that the generator works.  However, this is the only shock that is delivered by the machine.

Shock Instructions
The teacher is told to administer a shock to the learner each time he gives an incorrect answer.  He announces what level the shock is before administering the shock. The teacher starts at 15 Volts but he is instructed to move to the next switch the next time an answer is incorrect. 
This serves to remind the teacher that the shocks are getting higher.

Preliminary and Regular Run.
Pre-tests showed that the procedure of reading words, and giving shocks required some practice before the teacher was proficient.  Before the regular run the teacher is given a list of  10 words to read to the learner.  There are 3 words that the learner gets right, but makes mistakes on 7 of them, so that the shock level moves up to 105 Volts (Moderate Shock).  Almost all of the participants mange the procedure by the time the preliminary run is completed.
Teachers are then presented with another list, and are told that the procedure for this list is the same as the preliminary list, but the experimenter adds:

"When you get to the bottom of the list, repeat it over again, and continue giving shocks until the learner has learned all the pairs correctly."

The Experimenter instructs the learner to:

"start from 15 volts and increase the shock level one step each time the learner gives a wrong answer."

Feedback From the Victim
In all conditions the learner gives a predetermined set of responses to the word paired test based on the ratio of approximately 3 incorrect answers to 1 correct answer.  Consequently, the learner ascends the voltage scale very rapidly.  But at no time does he make any complaint......until 300 volts is administered, and the victim bangs on the wall (Remember, he was "strapped in".) 
From that point on, the victim does not give any answer and at this point, the teacher turns to the experimenter to seek guidance.  The guidance that he receives is to treat no answer as an incorrect answer and to administer shocks.  He was told to allow 5 or 10 seconds before continuing with the shock, and to increase the shock level each time.  Just to make sure, the victim pounds on the wall at the 315 volt level, and after that he continues not to answer and makes no further noise.

Experimenter feedback
At various points in the procedure the teacher may look to the experimenter for assistance.  It is important that this assistance is standardised as much as possible.  The experimenter has a series of verbal prods that he can use to encourage the teacher to continue.  They are:

          Prod 1: "Please continue" or "Please go on."
          Prod 2: "The experiment requires that you continue."
          Prod 3: "It is absolutely essential that you continue."
          Prod 4: "You have no other choice, you must go on."
The prods were always used in sequence, only if prod 1 was unsuccessful, could prod 2 be used.  If the experimenter continued to "prod" the teacher but he refused after prod 4 was used then the trial would be completed.
Special prods:  If the teacher asked if  the learner was to suffer any permanent injury, the experimenter would say:
"Although the shocks may be painful, there will be no permanent tissue damage, so please go on, [followed by prods 2, 3, and 4 if necessary.]
If the teacher said that the learner did not want to go on, the experimenter would say:
"Whether the learner likes it or not, you must go  on until he has learned all of the word pairs correctly.  So, please go on,
[followed by prods 2, 3, and 4 if necessary.]
Results

Before the study was carried out, Milgram asked fourteen Yale Seniors, all studying Psychology, what would be the distribution of obedience of "100 American males of diverse occupations in the age range of 20-50 years."  They were in full agreement with each other and their estimate was that between 1 and 3% would go on to give the highest shock of 450 volts to the learner.  The average of the 14 students was 1.2%.  The question was posed informally among colleagues of Professor Milgram, and the general feeling was that few, if any, participants would go beyond the designation Very Strong Shock (195 Volts to 240 Volts)

The primary dependent measure for any participant is the level of shock the he gave before he refuses to go any further.  This value could vary from 0 (for any participant who refused to give any shocks at all) to 30 (for a participant who gives the maximum shock)(the numbers given here refer to the switches).  A participant who breaks off at any point before the end, is referred to as a defiant participant.  A participant who complies with all instructions given to him by the experimenter is an obedient participant.  The distribution of the break off points are given below:
Voltage level
Number of participants this was the maximum shock
300
5
315
4
330
2
345
1
360
1
375
1
390
0
405
0
420
0
435
0
450
26
I started at 300 volts as nobody stopped before then(Why?).

Signs of Extreme Tension
During the study, many of the participants showed signs of tension and nervousness, particularly at the higher range of shocks.  In a large number of cases the degree of tension reached extremes that have been rarely seen in a psychological laboratory.  Participants were noticed to sweat, tremble, stutter, bite their lip, groan and dig their fingernails into their flesh.  One sign of tension was the regular occurrence of laughing fits.  Fourteen of the 40 participants showed definite signs of nervous laughter and smiling.  The laughter seemed extremely bizarre and out of place.  Full blown, uncontrollable seizures were observed in 3 participants, one was so sever that the trial was terminated.  The participant, a 46 year old encyclopedia salesman was very embarrassed by his behaviour.  In post-study interviews the men who laughed were at pains to point out that there were not sadists and were not enjoying giving the learner the shocks.
The procedure was recorded and their are many clips of the original study on You Tube.  However, the audio recordings of some of the participants are given below:
[0124] "I think he is trying to communicate, he's knocking......Well it is not fair to shock the guy.....these are terrific volts.  I don't think this is very humane......Oh I can't go on with this: no, this isn't right.  It's a hell of an experiment.  The guy is suffering in there.  No, I don't want to go on.  This is crazy." [The participant refused to administer any more shocks.]
0123] "He's banging in there.  I'm gonna chicken out.  I'd like to continue, but I can't do that to a man......I'm sorry I can't do that to a man.  I'll hurt his heart.  You take your check.....No really.  I couldn't do it.
These participants were frequently in a highly agitated ans even angered state.  Sometimes there was no verbal protest, the participant just stood up and indicated that he wanted to leave.
Of the 26 obedient participants, many of them voiced similar concerns to the participants who defied the experimenter, yet they continued to obey and shock the learner to the maximum extent.
After the maximum shocks had been delivered, and the experimenter called a halt to the proceedings, many of the obedient participants heaved a sigh of relief, mopped their brow, rubbed their eyes with their fingers, nervously fumbled cigarettes.  Some shook their heads, apparently in regret.  Unusually, some participants remained calm from beginning to end, and only displayed minimal signs of tension.
The fact of the matter is that Stanley Milgram organised a first-class debrief for the participants.  The first thing that he did was to arrange a friendly meeting with the learner, who made it plain that he was not harmed by the procedure.  There was then a series of one-to-one interviews, during which some information was gathered.  With few exceptions that participants were convinced of the reality of the situation.  They were asked "How painful to the learner were the last few shock that you administered to him?"  They were asked to rate their answer on a 14 point scale ranging from 0 "Not at all painful" to 14 "Extremely painful".  The most popular answer (the mode) was 14, and the mean was 13.42.
The de-brief continued and the participants were followed up over several years to ensure that they had suffered any ill effects from taking part in the study.

Discussion

The study yielded two findings that were surprising.  The first finding concerned the sheer strength of obedience that was manifested in this situation.  Most people are taught from an early age that it is not good to hurt someone else, yet in this situation we had 26/40 ordinary men, following the instruction of an authority figure, seemed to abandon what they had learned all that time ago.  Not following orders would not bring any financial loss to the participants, nor would there be any punishment.  However, judging by the comments that many participants made while they were operating the shock machine, they were operating against their own values.  Many would comment that this procedure was "stupid and senseless."  However the majority of the participants complied with the experimental commands.  This is surprising given the information given above when student and several colleagues of Milgram were asked what might happen.  Also the people who observed what was happening through one-way mirrors.  The observers could no believe what they were seeing, a participant more and more powerful shocks to the learner.
The second finding that was unanticipated was the amount of tension that was created in the participants and it was supposed that these individuals would stop if the tension got too much, but that did not happen.  One observer said:
"I observed a mature and initially poised businessman enter the laboratory smiling and confident.  Within 20 minutes he was reduced to a twitching, stuttering wreck, who was rapidly approaching a point of nervous collapse.  He constantly pulled on his earlobe and twisted his hands.  At one point he pushed his fist into his forehead and muttered "Oh God, let's stop it."  And yet he continued to respond to every command of the experimenter and obeyed until the very end."

Any understanding of the phenomenon of obedience must rely on the analysis of the particular conditions under which it occurred.  The following features go some way to the understanding of why the level of obedience was so high:
  1. The study was sposored by, and takes place in the grounds of an institution with an unimpeachable reputation - Yale University.  It can, therfore, be assumed that any person involved in the study must presumed to be competant and reputable.  Any effect of this might be contrasted with any similar study conducted away from the University.
  2. The study, on the face of it, is designed to attain a worthy purpose, the advancement of knowledge about learning and memory.  The obedience arises not as an end in itself, but as an instrument to encourage learning, which is significant.  The particpant may not be able to comprehend this significance but assumes that the experimenter does.
  3. The participant believes that the learner has volunteered for this, just like he had.  They took the trouble to come to the laboratory and the learner was willing, at first, as an unwilling captive presumably to aid the pursuit of knowledge.
  4. The particpant volunteered and hed taken part voluntarily, and perceives himself under an obligation to aid the experimenter.  He has made a commitment and to disrupt the study goes against this commitment.
  5. Certain feature of the study strengthen the sense of commitment of the particpant to the experimenter.  Fo example, he had been paid:
Of course, as in all studies of this nature, the money is yours simply for coming to the laboratory.  From this point on, no matter what happens, the money is yours.

6.From the point of view of the participant, the fact that he is teacher and that the other man is learner is purely down to chance, and he could have been the learner if that is what chance had dictated.
7.There is, at best, some ambiguity, as to what the participant can expect from the experimenter and there does not seem to be any infomation about what constitutes accepatable risks.  Because the particpant is on his own, there is no-one that he could talk to to dimish some of the ambiguity.
8.The particpants are assured that the shocks cause no permenent damage, they may assume that any discomfort is temporary, the knowlege gained will be permanent.
9.Up until Shock Level 20 (300Volts) the learner had been provideng answers and nothing had been heard from him.  It is only after Shock Level 20 had been administered that participants began to drop out.
10.The participant is placed in a situation where he must respond to the competing demands of two people: the experimenter and the learner.  The conflict can only be resolved by meeting the demands of one or the other.  Moreover, the resolution must take the form of a highly visible action, that of continuing or breaking off the study.  The participant is forced into a situation where ther is not a completely satisfactory conclusion.
11.While the demands of the experimenter carry the weight of scintific authority;  the demands of the learner spring from his personal experiene of pain and suffering.  The two claims may not be regarded as equally pressing and legitamate.
12.The procedure gives the participant little time for reflection.  The conflict descends rapidly.  The participants have only gone through the first two-thirds of the shocks that the learner starts to resist.  He can assume that the resistance put up by the learner will only increase as the shocks get bigger.  This may be a realisation that may add to the already tense situation.
13.At a more general level, the conflict arises from the opposition of two deeply ingrained behaviour dispositions:  first, the disposition not to harm other people, and second, the tendency to obey thos whom we perceive to be legitamate authorities.

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