BEHAVIORAL STUDY OF OBEDIENCE

1. BEHAVIORAL STUDY OF OBEDIENCE Stanley Milgram (1963), Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67: 371–378.

2. Obedience is a basic element in the structure of social life • Some system of authority is a requirement of living in a community, and it’s only the isolated person who isn’t forced to respond, through defiance or submission, to the commands of others

3. Obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose • Obedience binds people to systems of authority • Recent history and observation in daily life suggest that for may persons, obedience may be a deeply ingrained behavioral tendency, overriding even ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct

4. Still, obedience serves many productive functions • Society is predicated on its existence • Obedience may be ennobling, educative, and refer to acts of charity and kindness, as well as to destruction

5. General Procedure • A naïve subject is ordered to administer increasingly more intense electric shocks to a victim in the context of a “learning experiment” (ostensibly to study effects of punishment on memory) • A simulated shock generator is used, with 30 clearly marked voltage levels, from 15 to 450 volts • Labeled Slight Shock to Danger: Severe Shock • Responses of victim, a confederate, are standardized • Internal resistances become stronger, and at a certain point the subject refuses to continue • Behavior prior to the rupture is considered “obedience” • The point of rupture is the act of disobedience • A quantitative value is assigned to the subject’s performance based on the maximum intensity shock he is willing to administer

6. Crux of study is to systematically vary the factors believed to alter the degree of obedience • One may vary: • Aspects of the source of command • Content and form of command • Instrumentalities for its execution • Target object • General social setting • And more

7. Method: Subjects • 40 males between ages of 20 and 50 from New Haven and surrounding communities • Subjects responded to a newspaper ad and direct mail solicitation and believed they were to participate in a study of memory and learning at Yale University • A wide range of occupations and education levels is represented • Subjects were paid $4.50 for participation, but told that payment was simply for coming and that the money was theirs no matter what happened after they arrived

8. Method – Personnel and Locale • Experiment was conducted on grounds of Yale University • Role of experimenter was played by a 31-yr old high school biology teacher • Manner was impassive and appearance stern • Dressed in grey lab coat • Victim played by a 47-yr old accountant trained for the role • Irish American, found to be mild-mannered and likable

9. Method - Procedure • Cover story • Learning task • Shock generator • Sample shock • Shock instructions • Preliminary and regular run • Feedback from victim • Experimenter feedback

10. Method – Dependent Measures • Primary dependent measure for any subject is the maximum shock he administers before he refuses to go further • May vary from 0 to 30 • Subject who breaks off experiment at any point prior to administering the Level 30 shock is termed a defiant subject

11. Results • Subjects accept situation • Signs of extreme tension • Distribution of scores • Each of 40 subjects went beyond expected breakoff point • No subject stopped prior to Shock Level 20 • Of 40 subjects, 5 refused to obey commands beyond 300-volts (Shock Level 20) • A total of 14 subjects defied the experimenter • 26 subjects obeyedorders to the end