Milgram experiment [SEP] named after
Milgram experiment
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. They measured the willingness of study participants, men from a diverse range of occupations with varying levels of education, to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Participants were led to believe that they were assisting an unrelated experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a "learner." These fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that
continued after being assured by the experimenter. Some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating.
Milgram summarized the experiment in his 1974 article, "The Perils of Obedience", writing:
The original Simulated Shock Generator and Event Recorder, or "shock box", is located in the Archives of the History of American Psychology.
Later, Milgram and other psychologists performed variations of the experiment throughout the world, with similar results. Milgram later investigated the effect of the experiment's locale on obedience