Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment in the 1960s to test how far people would obey an authority figure who instructed them to harm another person. In the experiment, participants were told to administer electric shocks to a learner for giving wrong answers, with the shock levels increasing up to 450 volts. Surprisingly, 65% of participants administered the full 450 volts, even though they heard the learner pleading in pain. The experiment revealed that ordinary people may obey orders to harm others when instructed by an authority figure.

1. By: José Javier Salinas Z
Esteban Lemus
Diana Granados
Julio Guerra

2. "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." –Stanley
Milgram, 1974

3. INTRODUCTION
 He examined justifications for
acts of genocide offered by
those accused at the World
War II, Nuremberg War
Criminal trials. Their defense
often was based on
"obedience" - that they were
just following orders of their
superiors.

4.  In Milgram´s 1974 book
Obedience to Authority,
Milgram posed the question,
"Could it be that Eichmann
and his million accomplices
in the Holocaust were just
following orders? Could we
call them all accomplices?"

5.  Milgram was interested in researching how far
people would go in obeying an instruction if it
involved harming another person.

6. THE EXPERIMENT
 The participants in the
Milgram experiment were 40
men recruited using
newspaper ads.
 These participants took a roll
of a teacher, applying
electric shocks to another
person that had took the roll
of an student.

7.  The experiment take place in to separate rooms:

8.  When the teacher refused to administer a shock
and turned to the experimenter for guidance, he
was given the standard instruction /order
(consisting of 4 prods), two of them are:
 Prod 1: please continue.
 Prod 2: the experiment requires you to continue.

9. RESULTS
 The level of shock that the
participant was willing to deliver
was used as the measure of
obedience.
65% of the
participants in 65%
Milgram’s study 35%
delivered the
maximum shocks.

10.  Milgram later surveyed the participants and found
that 84% were glad to have participated, while
only 1% regretted their involvement.

11. CONCLUSION
Ordinary people are likely to follow orders
given by an authority figure, even to the
extent of killing an innocent human being.

12. DISSCUSION
 While Milgram’s research raised serious ethical
questions about the use of human subjects in
psychology experiments, his results have also
been consistently replicated in further
experiments.

13. VARIABLES
 The Milgram experiment was carried out many times
whereby Milgram varied the basic procedure. By doing this
miligram could identify what factors affected obidience.
 These factors were: 1 Status of location
2 Personal Responsability
3 Legitimacy of Authority Figure
4 Status of Authority Figure
5 Peer Support
6 Proximity of Authority Figure

14. A BIASED EXPERIMENT
The participants in Milgram's study were all
male. Do the findings transfer to females?

15. ETHICAL ISSUES
Deception
 Protection of participants

16. EXPERIMENT VALUE
Milgram’s experiment has become a
classic in psychology, demonstrating the
dangers of obedience.