Following Milgram’s original research, numerous variations were carried out to examine how different variables affect obedience. Agentic StateAn agentic state is when an individual carries out the orders of an authority figure and acts as their agent, with little personal responsibility. In Milgram’s original experiment, the participants were told that the experimenter had full responsibility and therefore they could act as an agent, carrying out the experimenter’s orders. If the participants were told that they were responsible, it is possible that Milgram would have obtained very different results. Milgram argued that people operate in one of two ways when faced with social situations. Individuals can act autonomously and choose their behaviour, or they can enter an agentic state, where they carry out orders of an authority figure and do not feel responsible for their actions. When a person changes from autonomous state to an agentic state, they have undergone an agentic shift. In Milgram’s original experiment 65% of participants administered the full 450 volts and were arguably in an agentic state. However, in one variation of Milgram’s experiment and additional confederate administered the electric shocks on behalf of the teacher. In this variation the percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts rose dramatically, from 65% to 92.5%. This variation highlights the power of shifting responsibility (agentic shift), as these participants were able to shift their responsibility onto the person administering the electric shocks and continue obeying orders because they felt less responsible. Therefore, the ability to enter an agentic state increases the level of obedience, as the level of personal responsibility decreases. ProximityIn Milgram’s original research the teacher and the learner were in separate rooms. In order to test the power of proximity, Milgram conducted a variation where the teacher and learner where seated in the same room. In this variation the percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts dropped from 65% to 40%. Here obedience levels fell, as the teacher was able to experience the learner’s pain more directly. In another variation, the teacher had to force the learner’s hand directly onto the shock plate. In this more extreme variation, the percentage dropped even further, to 30%. In these two variations, the closer the proximity of the teacher and learner, the lower the level of obedience. The proximity of the authority figure also affects the level of obedience. In one variation, after the experimenter had given the initial instructions they left the room. All subsequent instructions were provided over the phone. In this variation participants were more likely to defy the experimenter and only 21% of the participants administers the full 450 volts. LocationMilgram’s conducted his original research in a laboratory of Yale University. In order to test the power of the location, Milgram conducted a variation in a run down building in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The experiment was no longer associated with Yale University and was carried out by the Research Association of Bridgeport. In this variation the percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts dropped from 65% to 47.5%. This highlights the impact of location on obedience, with less credible locations resulting in a reduction in the level of obedience. UniformIn most of Milgram’s variations the experimenter wore a lab coat, indicating his status as a University Professor. Milgram examined the power of uniform in a variation where the experimenter was called away and replaced by another ‘participant’ in ordinary clothes, who was in fact another confederate. In this variation, the man in ordinary clothes came up with the idea of increasing the voltage every time the leaner made a mistake. The percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts when being instructed by an ordinary man, dropped from 65% to 20%, demonstrating the dramatic power of uniform. Bickman (1974) also investigated the power of uniform in a field experiment conducted in New York. Bickman used three male actors: one dressed as a milkman; one dressed as a security guard; and one dressed in ordinary clothes. The actors asked members of the public to following one of three instructions: pick up a bag; give someone money for a parking metre; and stand on the other side of a bus stop sign which said ‘no standing’. On average the guard was obeyed on 76% of occasions, the milkman on 47% and the pedestrian on 30%. These results all suggest that people are more likely to obey, when instructed by someone wearing a uniform. This is because the uniform infers a sense of legitimate authority and power. Legitimate AuthorityMilgram’s variations investigating location and uniform highlight an important factor in obedience research – legitimate authority. For a person to obey an instruction they need to believe that the authority is legitimate and this can be affected by multiple variables. In Milgram’s original research, which took place at Yale University, the percentage of participants administering the full 450 volts was high (65%). However, when the experiment took place in a run down building in Bridgeport, Connecticut, obedience levels dropped significantly (48%). This change in location reduced the legitimacy of the authority, as participants were less likely to trust the experiment. In addition, when the experimenter in Milgram’s research was replaced by another participant, in ordinary clothes, the obedience levels dropped even further (20%). The lack of a uniform and questionable position of authority reduced the credibility of the authority, which meant the participants were far less likely to obey.
In the 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of studies on the concepts of obedience and authority. His experiments involved instructing study participants to deliver increasingly high-voltage shocks to an actor in another room, who would scream and eventually go silent as the shocks became stronger. The shocks weren't real, but study participants were made to believe that they were. Today, the Milgram experiment is widely criticized on both ethical and scientific grounds. However, Milgram's conclusions about humanity's willingness to obey authority figures remain influential and well-known.
In the most well-known version of Stanley Milgram's experiment, the 40 male participants were told that the experiment focused on the relationship between punishment, learning, and memory. The experimenter then introduced each participant to a second individual, explaining that this second individual was participating in the study as well. Participants were told that they would be randomly assigned to roles of "teacher" and "learner." However, the "second individual" was an actor hired by the research team, and the study was set up so that the true participant would always be assigned to the "teacher" role. During the study, the learner was located in a separate room from the teacher (the real participant), but the teacher could hear the learner through the wall. The experimenter told the teacher that the learner would memorize word pairs and instructed the teacher to ask the learner questions. If the learner responded incorrectly to a question, the teacher would be asked to administer an electric shock. The shocks started at a relatively mild level (15 volts) but increased in 15-volt increments up to 450 volts. (In actuality, the shocks were fake, but the participant was led to believe they were real.) Participants were instructed to give a higher shock to the learner with each wrong answer. When the 150-volt shock was administered, the learner would cry out in pain and ask to leave the study. He would then continue crying out with each shock until the 330-volt level, at which point he would stop responding. During this process, whenever participants expressed hesitation about continuing with the study, the experimenter would urge them to go on with increasingly firm instructions, culminating in the statement, "You have no other choice, you must go on." The study ended when participants refused to obey the experimenter’s demand, or when they gave the learner the highest level of shock on the machine (450 volts). Milgram found that participants obeyed the experimenter at an unexpectedly high rate: 65% of the participants gave the learner the 450-volt shock. Milgram’s experiment has been widely criticized on ethical grounds. Milgram’s participants were led to believe that they acted in a way that harmed someone else, an experience that could have had long-term consequences. Moreover, an investigation by writer Gina Perry uncovered that some participants appear to not have been fully debriefed after the study—they were told months later, or not at all, that the shocks were fake and the learner wasn’t harmed. Milgram’s studies could not be perfectly recreated today, because researchers today are required to pay much more attention to the safety and well-being of human research subjects. Researchers have also questioned the scientific validity of Milgram’s results. In her examination of the study, Perry found that Milgram’s experimenter may have gone off script and told participants to obey many more times than the script specified. Additionally, some research suggests that participants may have figured out that the learner was not actually harmed: in interviews conducted after the study, some participants reported that they didn’t think the learner was in any real danger. This mindset is likely to have affected their behavior in the study. Milgram and other researchers conducted numerous versions of the experiment over time. The participants' levels of compliance with the experimenter’s demands varied greatly from one study to the next. For example, when participants were in closer proximity to the learner (e.g. in the same room), they were less likely give the learner the highest level of shock. Another version of the study brought three "teachers" into the experiment room at once. One was a real participant, and the other two were actors hired by the research team. During the experiment, the two non-participant teachers would quit as the level of shocks began to increase. Milgram found that these conditions made the real participant far more likely to "disobey" the experimenter, too: only 10% of participants gave the 450-volt shock to the learner. In yet another version of the study, two experimenters were present, and during the experiment, they would begin arguing with one another about whether it was right to continue the study. In this version, none of the participants gave the learner the 450-volt shock. Researchers have sought to replicate Milgram's original study with additional safeguards in place to protect participants. In 2009, Jerry Burger replicated Milgram’s famous experiment at Santa Clara University with new safeguards in place: the highest shock level was 150 volts, and participants were told that the shocks were fake immediately after the experiment ended. Additionally, participants were screened by a clinical psychologist before the experiment began, and those found to be at risk of a negative reaction to the study were deemed ineligible to participate. Burger found that participants obeyed at similar levels as Milgram’s participants: 82.5% of Milgram’s participants gave the learner the 150-volt shock, and 70% of Burger’s participants did the same. Milgram’s interpretation of his research was that everyday people are capable of carrying out unthinkable actions in certain circumstances. His research has been used to explain atrocities such as the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, though these applications are by no means widely accepted or agreed upon. Importantly, not all participants obeyed the experimenter’s demands, and Milgram’s studies shed light on the factors that enable people to stand up to authority. In fact, as sociologist Matthew Hollander writes, we may be able to learn from the participants who disobeyed, as their strategies may enable us to respond more effectively to an unethical situation. The Milgram experiment suggested that human beings are susceptible to obeying authority, but it also demonstrated that obedience is not inevitable.
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What percent of participants delivered the maximum number of volts in the classic Milgram study?
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