E-02 · Social Psychology
A calm voice, a legitimate institution, an escalating protocol. At each step you decide: comply, question, or refuse. This room studies the decision, not the shock.
Experimental design
Between-subjects variations; Milgram obedience paradigm (ethical simulation)
Obedience
Compliance with instructions from a perceived legitimate authority despite personal reservations
Agentic state
Psychological shift where the actor feels an authority bears responsibility (Milgram, 1974)
Gradual commitment
Escalation in small steps that prevents a clear moment of refusal
Milgram experiment
Participants administered believed electric shocks on experimenter's orders; 65% continued to maximum in baseline (Milgram, 1963).
Legitimate authority
Institutionally endorsed figure whose commands are perceived as binding.
Diffusion of responsibility
Reduced personal accountability when authority or group shares causal responsibility.
Difficulty
AdvancedEstimated time
14 minutes
Paradigm
Obedience (Milgram)
First published
1963
Ordinary people comply with authority to a degree almost no one predicts, including professionals asked to forecast the results. Legitimacy, gradual escalation, and diffusion of responsibility do most of the work.
Stanley Milgram's 1963 obedience studies asked participants to administer what they believed were escalating electric shocks to a learner, prompted by an experimenter's scripted insistence. Psychiatrists predicted fewer than 1% would continue to the maximum; in the baseline condition, 65% did. Milgram's variations mapped the conditions that raise and lower obedience, proximity of the victim, legitimacy of the institution, presence of dissenting peers. This platform recreates the decision structure ethically: no deception, no victim, full debrief, the modern consensus for teaching this study.
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), 371–378.