Milgram Experiment

1. AIM : to calculate how far people would go in obeying a higher authority even if it involved putting someones life in danger

2. Findings: At the end of this experiment, Milgram found that normal people are likely to follow orders that are given to them by a higher authority.

3. wanted to investigate whether Germans were particularly obedient to authority figures as this was common explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II.

4. Procedure: Volunteers were gathered together for a lab experiment investigating "learning"

5. At the beginning they were introduced to another participant, who was actually a part of the experiment chosen my Milgram. They drew straws to determine their roles (learner or teacher)

6. There was also an "experimenter" who was dressed in a grey lab coat, played my an actor.

7. There were two rooms in the Yale Interaction Laboratory that were used. One for the learner (which was an electric chair) and another for the teacher and experimenter with an electric shock generator.

8. Target Population : 40 men aged between 20 and 50

9. Deception: the participants actually believed they were shocking a real person, and were unaware the learner was a confederate of Milgram's.

10. Protection of the Participants: Participants were exposed to extremely stressful situations that may have the potential to cause psychological harm. Many were visibly distressed.

11. Participants were 40 males, whose ages were between 20 and 50. Their jobs ranged from unskilled to professional from New Haven area.

12. Right To Withdrawal: Milgram did not give the participants the opportunity to withdraw. Instead of allowing them to withdraw, Milgram told participants to continue.

13. The "learner" was strapped to a chair with electrodes. The leaner was to learn a list of word pairs and the "teacher" tests him by naming the word and asking the learner to recall its word pair.

14. The teacher is told to administer the electric shock every time the learner answers the question wrong, increasing the shock each time.

15. The learner gave mainly wrong answers (on purpose). When the teacher refused to administer the experimenter gave the teacher a list of orders.