1. The Psychology of Evil
How far will people go in the name of
obedience?

2. Are Germans different?
 In the beginning, Stanley
Milgram was worried about the
Nazi problem.
 He doesn’t worry about that
anymore, he worried about you
and me.
 Stanley Milgram was a social
psychologist at Yale University
in 1960.
 His research aim was to provide
evidence for the “Germans are
different” hypothesis

3. “Germans are different” hypothesis
 The hypothesis has been used
by historians to explain the
systematic destruction of the
Jews by the Third Reich.
 Milgram set out to test whether
Germans have a basic character
flaw which is a readiness to
obey authority without
question, no matter what
outrageous acts the authority
commands.

4. Milgram’s research into obedience
 Milgram developed a laboratory experiment which provided a systematic
way to measure obedience.
 His decision to study obedience was tempered by his own Jewish cultural
background.
 His plan was to test the hypothesis on the population of New Haven on
Americans and then go to Germany and test the German population.

5. Milgram’s experimental design
 Milgram recruited participants using a newspaper advert (see copy in
your pack).
 The participants arrived at The Yale Interaction Laboratory and were
met by the experimenter, Jack Williams, a man dressed in a
laboratory coat.
 The participants meet another man, a man in his 50s.
 The experimenter explains the experiment to both of them:
 “It is about learning. Science does not know much about negative
reinforcement on learning. Negative reinforcement is getting
punished when you get something wrong. In this case, it will be an
electric shock.”

6. Milgram’s experimental design
 The experimenter takes two pieces of paper and places
them in a hat. One piece of paper is supposed to say
“Teacher”, the other “Learner”.
 Pick one – and you find out which you will be.
 You look at yours, it says “Teacher”.
 The experimenter beckons the “Learner”.
 “Want to step right in here and take a seat, please? You can
leave your coat on the back of that chair…. Roll up your
right sleeve, please. Now what I want you to do is strap
down your arms to avoid excessive movement on your part
during the experiment. This electrode is connected to the
shock generator in the next room.”

7. Milgram’s experimental set-up

8. The Shock Generator
(from 15volts to 450volts)

9. Would Milgram’s participants obey?
 Do you think the American participants would obey
the experimenter and deliver electric shocks to
another human being?
 What % of participants do you think would deliver
the full (and fatal) 450volt shock?
 Write your percentage estimate and compare with a
neighbour.

10. Milgram’s Obedience research

11. Milgram’s result
 65% of Milgram’s participants delivered the full (and fatal)
450volt shock.
 Even though the learner gave out an agonised scream at
285 volts, a refusal to answer at 315 volts and only
ominous silence after that.
 So why did the participants obey? Most participants
groaned, protested, fidgeted, argued and in some cases,
were seized by fits of nervous, agitated giggling.

12. An explanation for obedience?
 Milgram suggested:
 “They are somehow
engaged in something from
which they cannot liberate
themselves. They are
locked into a structure,
and they do not have the
skills or inner resources to
The Goebbels family – Frau Goebbels
disengage themselves.” poisoned all six of her children in the final
days of the war. Josef Goebbels shot his
wife dead and then shot himself.

13. Killing in the name of….
Gas ovens at
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Rwandan
genocide
Vietcong dead

14. WHY?

15. Were the Germans different?
 The answer is “No”.
 Milgram’s experimental
results in 1963 provide
evidence that atrocities can
happen ANYWHERE.
 He argued that there are
two reasons why people
obey.

16. Theory of conformism
 The theory of conformism is based on
Solomon Asch's work, describing the
fundamental relationship between the
group of reference and the individual
person
 "A subject who has neither ability
nor expertise to make decisions,
especially in a crisis, will leave
decision making to the group and its
hierarchy. The group is the person's
behavioural model."
 So, the SS troops followed the orders
of the officers.
Reichsfuhrer of the SS:
Heinrich Himmler.

17. Agentic State theory
Agentic state theory, according
to Milgram,
• “The essence of obedience
consists in the fact that a person
comes to view himself as the
instrument for carrying out
another person's wishes, and he
therefore no longer sees
himself as responsible for his
actions. Once this critical shift
of viewpoint has occurred in
the person, all of the essential Holocaust Memorial
features of obedience follow."

18. Milgram’s reflections
“The social psychology of this century reveals a major
lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a
man is as the kind of situation in which he finds
himself that determines how he will act." (1974)
“Some people are psychologically incapable of
disengaging themselves. But that doesn’t relieve them
of the moral responsibility.” (1970)

19. What can we learn?