strengths and weaknesses of milgram's experiment

Milgram’s Obedience Experiment – Strengths and Limitations

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Last Updated on June 14, 2023 by Karl Thompson

Milgram’s obedience experiment is one of the most useful examples to illustrate the strengths and limitations of laboratory experiments in psychology/ sociology, as well as revealing the punishingly depressing findings that people are remarkably passive in the face of authority…

This post outlines details of the original experiment and two recent, televised repeats by the BBC (2008) and for Darren Brown’s ‘The Heist’ (2014).

The Original Obedience Experiment (1963)

Milgram (1963) was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. Stanley Milgram was interested in how easily ordinary people could be influenced into committing atrocities for example, Germans in WWII.

Volunteers were recruited for a lab experiment investigating “learning” (re: ethics: deception). Participants were 40 males, aged between 20 and 50, whose jobs ranged from unskilled to professional, from the New Haven area. They were paid $4.50 for just turning up.

At the beginning of the experiment they were introduced to another participant, who was actually an associate of the experimenter (Milgram). They drew straws to determine their roles – learner or teacher – although this was fixed and the confederate was always the learner. There was also an “experimenter” dressed in a grey lab coat, played by an actor.

Two rooms in the Yale Interaction Laboratory were used – one for the learner (with an electric chair) and another for the teacher and experimenter with an electric shock generator.

The “learner” was strapped to a chair with electrodes. After he has learned a list of word pairs given him to learn, the “teacher” tests him by naming a word and asking the learner to recall its partner/pair from a list of four possible choices.

The teacher is told to administer an electric shock every time the learner makes a mistake, increasing the level of shock each time. There were 30 switches on the shock generator marked from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 (danger – severe shock).

Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being. Obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the way we are brought up.

People tend to obey orders from other people if they recognize their authority as morally right and / or legally based. This response to legitimate authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family, school and workplace.

Despite the many ethical pitfalls of this experiment, some participants still believed the benefits outweighed the costs – below is the view of one participant…“While I was a subject in 1964, though I believed that I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so. Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority… To permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority’s demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself… I am fully prepared to go to jail if I am not granted Conscientious Objector status. Indeed, it is the only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only hope is that members of my board act equally according to their conscience…”

More recent video repeats of the Milgram experiment:

The BBC did a documentary in 2008 in which 12 people were subjected to what seems to be the same experiment, and a similar results found. Vimeo link here .

Strengths and Limitations of Milgram’s Obedience Experiment

The above experiment illustrates many of the advantages and disadvantages of using laboratory experiments in psychology and sociology.

Some of the obvious advantages include the fact that it’s got excellent reliability, given the similar results gained on the two repeats, and it’s still a useful tool for waking us up to just how quiescent to authority many of us are, challenging theories such as the flight from deference.

Signposting

Laboratory Experiments are one of the main methods taught as part of the Research Methods topic within A-level sociology.

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Understanding the Milgram Experiment in Psychology

A closer look at Milgram's controversial studies of obedience

Isabelle Adam (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) via Flickr

Factors That Influence Obedience

• Ethical Concerns
• Replications

How far do you think people would go to obey an authority figure? Would they refuse to obey if the order went against their values or social expectations? Those questions were at the heart of an infamous and controversial study known as the Milgram obedience experiments.

Yale University  psychologist   Stanley Milgram  conducted these experiments during the 1960s. They explored the effects of authority on obedience. In the experiments, an authority figure ordered participants to deliver what they believed were dangerous electrical shocks to another person. These results suggested that people are highly influenced by authority and highly obedient . More recent investigations cast doubt on some of the implications of Milgram's findings and even the results and procedures themselves. Despite its problems, the study has, without question, made a significant impact on psychology .

At a Glance

Milgram's experiments posed the question: Would people obey orders, even if they believed doing so would harm another person? Milgram's findings suggested the answer was yes, they would. The experiments have long been controversial, both because of the startling findings and the ethical problems with the research. More recently, experts have re-examined the studies, suggesting that participants were often coerced into obeying and that at least some participants recognized that the other person was just pretending to be shocked. Such findings call into question the study's validity and authenticity, but some replications suggest that people are surprisingly prone to obeying authority.

History of the Milgram Experiments

Milgram started his experiments in 1961, shortly after the trial of the World War II criminal Adolf Eichmann had begun. Eichmann’s defense that he was merely following instructions when he ordered the deaths of millions of Jews roused Milgram’s interest.

In his 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?"

Procedure in the Milgram Experiment

The participants in the most famous variation of the Milgram experiment were 40 men recruited using newspaper ads. In exchange for their participation, each person was paid $4.50.

Milgram developed an intimidating shock generator, with shock levels starting at 15 volts and increasing in 15-volt increments all the way up to 450 volts. The many switches were labeled with terms including "slight shock," "moderate shock," and "danger: severe shock." The final three switches were labeled simply with an ominous "XXX."

Each participant took the role of a "teacher" who would then deliver a shock to the "student" in a neighboring room whenever an incorrect answer was given. While participants believed that they were delivering real shocks to the student, the “student” was a confederate in the experiment who was only pretending to be shocked.

As the experiment progressed, the participant would hear the learner plead to be released or even complain about a heart condition. Once they reached the 300-volt level, the learner would bang on the wall and demand to be released.

Beyond this point, the learner became completely silent and refused to answer any more questions. The experimenter then instructed the participant to treat this silence as an incorrect response and deliver a further shock.

Most participants asked the experimenter whether they should continue. The experimenter then responded with a series of commands to prod the participant along:

• "Please continue."
• "The experiment requires that you continue."
• "It is absolutely essential that you continue."
• "You have no other choice; you must go on."

Results of the Milgram Experiment

In the Milgram experiment, obedience was measured by the level of shock that the participant was willing to deliver. While many of the subjects became extremely agitated, distraught, and angry at the experimenter, they nevertheless continued to follow orders all the way to the end.

Milgram's results showed that 65% of the participants in the study delivered the maximum shocks. Of the 40 participants in the study, 26 delivered the maximum shocks, while 14 stopped before reaching the highest levels.

Why did so many of the participants in this experiment perform a seemingly brutal act when instructed by an authority figure? According to Milgram, there are some situational factors that can explain such high levels of obedience:

• The physical presence of an authority figure dramatically increased compliance .
• The fact that Yale (a trusted and authoritative academic institution) sponsored the study led many participants to believe that the experiment must be safe.
• The selection of teacher and learner status seemed random.
• Participants assumed that the experimenter was a competent expert.
• The shocks were said to be painful, not dangerous.

Later experiments conducted by Milgram indicated that the presence of rebellious peers dramatically reduced obedience levels. When other people refused to go along with the experimenter's orders, 36 out of 40 participants refused to deliver the maximum shocks.

More recent work by researchers suggests that while people do tend to obey authority figures, the process is not necessarily as cut-and-dried as Milgram depicted it.

In a 2012 essay published in PLoS Biology , researchers suggested that the degree to which people are willing to obey the questionable orders of an authority figure depends largely on two key factors:

• How much the individual agrees with the orders
• How much they identify with the person giving the orders

While it is clear that people are often far more susceptible to influence, persuasion , and obedience than they would often like to be, they are far from mindless machines just taking orders. 

Another study that analyzed Milgram's results concluded that eight factors influenced the likelihood that people would progress up to the 450-volt shock:

• The experimenter's directiveness
• Legitimacy and consistency
• Group pressure to disobey
• Indirectness of proximity
• Intimacy of the relation between the teacher and learner
• Distance between the teacher and learner

Ethical Concerns in the Milgram Experiment

Milgram's experiments have long been the source of considerable criticism and controversy. From the get-go, the ethics of his experiments were highly dubious. Participants were subjected to significant psychological and emotional distress.

Some of the major ethical issues in the experiment were related to:

• The use of deception
• The lack of protection for the participants who were involved
• Pressure from the experimenter to continue even after asking to stop, interfering with participants' right to withdraw

Due to concerns about the amount of anxiety experienced by many of the participants, everyone was supposedly debriefed at the end of the experiment. The researchers reported that they explained the procedures and the use of deception.

Critics of the study have argued that many of the participants were still confused about the exact nature of the experiment, and recent findings suggest that many participants were not debriefed at all.

Replications of the Milgram Experiment

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. One review further research on obedience and found that Milgram’s findings hold true in other experiments. In one study, researchers conducted a study designed to replicate Milgram's classic obedience experiment. The researchers made several alterations to Milgram's experiment.

• The maximum shock level was 150 volts as opposed to the original 450 volts.
• Participants were also carefully screened to eliminate those who might experience adverse reactions to the experiment.

The results of the new experiment revealed that participants obeyed at roughly the same rate that they did when Milgram conducted his original study more than 40 years ago.

Some psychologists suggested that in spite of the changes made in the replication, the study still had merit and could be used to further explore some of the situational factors that also influenced the results of Milgram's study. But other psychologists suggested that the replication was too dissimilar to Milgram's original study to draw any meaningful comparisons.

One study examined people's beliefs about how they would do compared to the participants in Milgram's experiments. They found that most people believed they would stop sooner than the average participants. These findings applied to both those who had never heard of Milgram's experiments and those who were familiar with them. In fact, those who knew about Milgram's experiments actually believed that they would stop even sooner than other people.

Another novel replication involved recruiting participants in pairs and having them take turns acting as either an 'agent' or 'victim.' Agents then received orders to shock the victim. The results suggest that only around 3.3% disobeyed the experimenter's orders.

Recent Criticisms and New Findings

Psychologist Gina Perry suggests that much of what we think we know about Milgram's famous experiments is only part of the story. While researching an article on the topic, she stumbled across hundreds of audiotapes found in Yale archives that documented numerous variations of Milgram's shock experiments.

Participants Were Often Coerced

While Milgram's reports of his process report methodical and uniform procedures, the audiotapes reveal something different. During the experimental sessions, the experimenters often went off-script and coerced the subjects into continuing the shocks.

"The slavish obedience to authority we have come to associate with Milgram’s experiments comes to sound much more like bullying and coercion when you listen to these recordings," Perry suggested in an article for Discover Magazine .

Few Participants Were Really Debriefed

Milgram suggested that the subjects were "de-hoaxed" after the experiments. He claimed he later surveyed the participants and found that 84% were glad to have participated, while only 1% regretted their involvement.

However, Perry's findings revealed that of the 700 or so people who took part in different variations of his studies between 1961 and 1962, very few were truly debriefed.

A true debriefing would have involved explaining that the shocks weren't real and that the other person was not injured. Instead, Milgram's sessions were mainly focused on calming the subjects down before sending them on their way.

Many participants left the experiment in a state of considerable distress. While the truth was revealed to some months or even years later, many were simply never told a thing.

Variations Led to Differing Results

Another problem is that the version of the study presented by Milgram and the one that's most often retold does not tell the whole story. The statistic that 65% of people obeyed orders applied only to one variation of the experiment, in which 26 out of 40 subjects obeyed.

In other variations, far fewer people were willing to follow the experimenters' orders, and in some versions of the study, not a single participant obeyed.

Participants Guessed the Learner Was Faking

Perry even tracked down some of the people who took part in the experiments, as well as Milgram's research assistants. What she discovered is that many of his subjects had deduced what Milgram's intent was and knew that the "learner" was merely pretending.

Such findings cast Milgram's results in a new light. It suggests that not only did Milgram intentionally engage in some hefty misdirection to obtain the results he wanted but that many of his participants were simply playing along.

An analysis of an unpublished study by Milgram's assistant, Taketo Murata, found that participants who believed they were really delivering a shock were less likely to obey, while those who did not believe they were actually inflicting pain were more willing to obey. In other words, the perception of pain increased defiance, while skepticism of pain increased obedience.

A review of Milgram's research materials suggests that the experiments exerted more pressure to obey than the original results suggested. Other variations of the experiment revealed much lower rates of obedience, and many of the participants actually altered their behavior when they guessed the true nature of the experiment.

Impact of the Milgram Experiment

Since there is no way to truly replicate the experiment due to its serious ethical and moral problems, determining whether Milgram's experiment really tells us anything about the power of obedience is impossible to determine.

So why does Milgram's experiment maintain such a powerful hold on our imaginations, even decades after the fact? Perry believes that despite all its ethical issues and the problem of never truly being able to replicate Milgram's procedures, the study has taken on the role of what she calls a "powerful parable."

Milgram's work might not hold the answers to what makes people obey or even the degree to which they truly obey. It has, however, inspired other researchers to explore what makes people follow orders and, perhaps more importantly, what leads them to question authority.

Recent findings undermine the scientific validity of the study. Milgram's work is also not truly replicable due to its ethical problems. However, the study has led to additional research on how situational factors can affect obedience to authority.

Milgram’s experiment has become a classic in psychology , demonstrating the dangers of obedience. The research suggests that situational variables have a stronger sway than personality factors in determining whether people will obey an authority figure. However, other psychologists argue that both external and internal factors heavily influence obedience, such as personal beliefs and overall temperament.

Milgram S.  Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.  Harper & Row.

Russell N, Gregory R. The Milgram-Holocaust linkage: challenging the present consensus . State Crim J. 2015;4(2):128-153.

Russell NJC. Milgram's obedience to authority experiments: origins and early evolution . Br J Soc Psychol . 2011;50:140-162. doi:10.1348/014466610X492205

Haslam SA, Reicher SD. Contesting the "nature" of conformity: What Milgram and Zimbardo's studies really show . PLoS Biol. 2012;10(11):e1001426. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001426

Milgram S. Liberating effects of group pressure . J Person Soc Psychol. 1965;1(2):127-234. doi:10.1037/h0021650

Haslam N, Loughnan S, Perry G. Meta-Milgram: an empirical synthesis of the obedience experiments .  PLoS One . 2014;9(4):e93927. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0093927

Perry G. Deception and illusion in Milgram's accounts of the obedience experiments . Theory Appl Ethics . 2013;2(2):79-92.

Blass T. The Milgram paradigm after 35 years: some things we now know about obedience to authority . J Appl Soc Psychol. 1999;29(5):955-978. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1999.tb00134.x

Burger J. Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today? . Am Psychol . 2009;64(1):1-11. doi:10.1037/a0010932

Elms AC. Obedience lite . American Psychologist . 2009;64(1):32-36. doi:10.1037/a0014473

Miller AG. Reflections on “replicating Milgram” (Burger, 2009) . American Psychologist . 2009;64(1):20-27. doi:10.1037/a0014407

Grzyb T, Dolinski D. Beliefs about obedience levels in studies conducted within the Milgram paradigm: Better than average effect and comparisons of typical behaviors by residents of various nations .  Front Psychol . 2017;8:1632. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01632

Caspar EA. A novel experimental approach to study disobedience to authority .  Sci Rep . 2021;11(1):22927. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-02334-8

Haslam SA, Reicher SD, Millard K, McDonald R. ‘Happy to have been of service’: The Yale archive as a window into the engaged followership of participants in Milgram’s ‘obedience’ experiments . Br J Soc Psychol . 2015;54:55-83. doi:10.1111/bjso.12074

Perry G, Brannigan A, Wanner RA, Stam H. Credibility and incredulity in Milgram’s obedience experiments: A reanalysis of an unpublished test . Soc Psychol Q . 2020;83(1):88-106. doi:10.1177/0190272519861952

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Milgram (1963)

Aim To find out whether people would be obedient to authority even if it meant physically hurting others. Background 11 million people

Original Study

Study Summary Sheet

Topical Past Paper

Aim To find out whether people would be obedient to authority even if it meant physically hurting others.

Background 11 million people were gruesomely killed by Nazis. Milgram being Jewish sought to find if anyone under a similar situation would harm or murder others under an authoritative figure's orders. Milgram suggested a situational explanation for obedience. Milgram had conferred with his psychology students and colleagues, and they predicted that less than 3% of participants would deliver the maximum voltage shock of 450 volts.

Research Method, Design and Stooges Controlled observation in a laboratory setting. The study was conducted at Linsly-Chittenden Hall at Yale University. The independent measures design was implemented. Mr William — the experimenter was a stooge. He was a 31-year-old male school biology teacher in a coat called 'Mr William'. He wore a grey technician coat and had a stern manner. Mr Wallace — He was a confederate/stooge, an accountant who pretended to be another participant. He was 47 years old and he played the role of 'learner'.

Sample Volunteer or self-selecting sampling was used. A newspaper advert had been used to recruit 40 men aged between 20 and 50 years old. They were from a variety of educational backgrounds. They were from New Haven.

Procedure Each participant was paid $4.50 for their willingness to participate. The participant was always given the role of 'teacher' and Mr Wallace the role of 'learner'. The participant was told that the study was focused on memory and learning (deception). The participant was given a mild electric shock of 45v to the wrist to convince them that the shocks were genuine. Milgram watched through a one-way mirror. The learner never received any shock, but the test shock and the elaborate machine was set up to convince the participant that they were really injuring the learner.

Memory task involved reading pairs of words aloud to the learner to test their recognition of words. Each mistake was given a voltage shock 15v higher than the previous one. The shock generator had 30 lever switches set in a horizontal line. Shocks increased by 15 volts.

• "Please continue/please go on."
• "The experiment requires you to continue."
• "It is absolutely essential that you continue."
• "You have no other choice, you must go on."
• Prods used when the subject asks if the learner was liable to suffer permanent physical injury: "Although the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage, so please go on." [Followed by prod 2/3/4 if necessary.]
• Prods used if the subject said that the learner did not want to go on: "Whether the learner likes it or not, you must go on until he has learned all the word pairs correctly. So please go on." [Followed by prod 2/3/4 if necessary.]

Learner Responses were standardised. No signs of protest are heard from the learner until after the 300v shock is administered. When the 300v shock is administered, the learner pounds on the room's wall, which is heard by the subject. Learner stops responding to the questions after receiving the 300v shock. After getting the 315v shock, the pounding is repeated and afterwards, no response appears for the questions, and he is not heard from. Teacher Instructed to move 15v higher with each mistake and also told to announce the voltage level before administering it. The teacher is given a preliminary series of 10 words to read to the learner. 7 answers would be wrong, reaching 105v. A second list is given and is told to repeat the procedure and list until all words are memorised by the learner. When the leaner pounds on the wall, the teacher turns to the experimenter for guidance and is advised that if a response wasn't achieved within 5-10s, then to consider it as a wrong answer. Comment made: "I'm gonna chicken out... I can't do that to a man, I'll hurt his heart." Behaviour: sweating, shaking, nervous laughter, and smiling.

After the procedure ended, they showed signs of relief, wiped faces, sighed and shook heads. A small minority did not seem to be stressed. They were debriefed and interviewed and met Mr Wallace to ensure his wellbeing. As part of the interview, they were asked to rate on a scale of 0 - 14 how painful they thought the 450v shock was.

• 65% of 40 participants = 26 participants went to 450v.
• 14 defiant participants stopped early: 5 after 300v; 4 after 315v; 2 after 330v; 1 each after 345v, 360v and 375v.
• The mean voltage given was 368v. The mean estimate of the pain of the 450v shock was 13.42.
• The legitimacy of the context - professional academic environment (Linsly-Chittenden Hall at Yale University).
• The feeling of financial obligation.
• Proximity to the authority figure, and the victim.
• Personal responsibility for completing the task, and momentum of compliance.
• Authority figure (appearance + sternness)
• They would not be held responsible for any damage caused.
• Individuals are much more obedient to authority than expected.
• People find that carrying out destructive acts triggers feelings of stress. This is due to a conflict between 2 important social phenomena: i) obeying authority, and ii) the need to avoid harming others.
• Controlled observation makes it possible to control extraneous variables in the environment such as age and appearance. Hence, the shock level administered did not depend on how sympathetic the teacher felt towards different stooges.
• The level of control and standardisation such as the same responses and prods used means that the research was more reliable.
• Detailed design of the shock generator and the test shock given increases validity because it convinced participants that the shocks were real and their actions mattered.
• The participants were all males and were from the same area. This makes results less generalisable to the target population.
• Milgram carefully selected participants to ensure a range of ages and backgrounds, which allowed the sample to have greater validity.
• An objective record of measuring the voltage levels of shocks delivered — a qualitative measurement — was taken. Results were easily comparable, and conclusions could be easily drawn.
• Qualitative measurements such as detailed information on behaviour and comments. This data is more susceptible and provides a richer understanding.

Ethical Issues • They did not give informed consent as they were told the false aim → deception. • Deception as the chits were rigged. • Participants were arguably denied their right to withdraw. • Participants underwent psychological harm and distress. There may have been lasting negative consequences as they may have been deeply disturbed by their own actions.

Application of the study • Administrative offices - to stand up to unjust requests of bosses • Educational institutes • Hospitals have whistle-blowing policies to encourage the reporting of mistakes made by doctors to protect patients.

Individual and Situational Explanation Study shows that the majority of people will be destructively obedient if they felt that the authoritative figure is legitimate. However, some individuals are more resistant to authority than others.

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Milgram experiment

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• Open University - OpenLearn - Psychological research, obedience and ethics: 1 Milgram’s obedience study
• Social Science LibreTexts - The Milgram Experiment- The Power of Authority
• Verywell Mind - What was the Milgram Experiment?
• BCcampus Open Publishing - Ethics in Law Enforcement - The Milgram Experiment
• Nature - Modern Milgram experiment sheds light on power of authority
• SimplyPsychology - Stanley Milgram Shock Experiment: Summary, Results, & Ethics
• University of California - College of Natural Resources - Milgrams Experiment on Obedience to Authority

Milgram experiment , controversial series of experiments examining obedience to authority conducted by social psychologist Stanley Milgram . In the experiment, an authority figure, the conductor of the experiment, would instruct a volunteer participant, labeled the “teacher,” to administer painful, even dangerous, electric shocks to the “learner,” who was actually an actor. Although the shocks were faked, the experiments are widely considered unethical today due to the lack of proper disclosure, informed consent, and subsequent debriefing related to the deception and trauma experienced by the teachers. Some of Milgram’s conclusions have been called into question. Nevertheless, the experiments and their results have been widely cited for their insight into how average people respond to authority.

Milgram conducted his experiments as an assistant professor at Yale University in the early 1960s. In 1961 he began to recruit men from New Haven , Connecticut , for participation in a study he claimed would be focused on memory and learning . The recruits were paid $4.50 at the beginning of the study and were generally between the ages of 20 and 50 and from a variety of employment backgrounds. When they volunteered, they were told that the experiment would test the effect of punishment on learning ability. In truth, the volunteers were the subjects of an experiment on obedience to authority. In all, about 780 people, only about 40 of them women, participated in the experiments, and Milgram published his results in 1963.

Volunteers were told that they would be randomly assigned either a “teacher” or “learner” role, with each teacher administering electric shocks to a learner in another room if the learner failed to answer questions correctly. In actuality, the random draw was fixed so that all the volunteer participants were assigned to the teacher role and the actors were assigned to the learner role. The teachers were then instructed in the electroshock “punishment” they would be administering, with 30 shock levels ranging from 15 to 450 volts. The different shock levels were labeled with descriptions of their effects, such as “Slight Shock,” “Intense Shock,” and “Danger: Severe Shock,” with the final label a grim “XXX.” Each teacher was given a 45-volt shock themselves so that they would better understand the punishment they believed the learner would be receiving. Teachers were then given a series of questions for the learner to answer, with each incorrect answer generally earning the learner a progressively stronger shock. The actor portraying the learner, who was seated out of sight of the teacher, had pre-recorded responses to these shocks that ranged from grunts of pain to screaming and pleading, claims of suffering a heart condition, and eventually dead silence. The experimenter, acting as an authority figure, would encourage the teachers to continue administering shocks, telling them with scripted responses that the experiment must continue despite the reactions of the learner. The infamous result of these experiments was that a disturbingly high number of the teachers were willing to proceed to the maximum voltage level, despite the pleas of the learner and the supposed danger of proceeding.

Milgram’s interest in the subject of authority, and his dark view of the results of his experiments, were deeply informed by his Jewish identity and the context of the Holocaust , which had occurred only a few years before. He had expected that Americans, known for their individualism , would differ from Germans in their willingness to obey authority when it might lead to harming others. Milgram and his students had predicted only 1–3% of participants would administer the maximum shock level. However, in his first official study, 26 of 40 male participants (65%) were convinced to do so and nearly 80% of teachers that continued to administer shocks after 150 volts—the point at which the learner was heard to scream—continued to the maximum of 450 volts. Teachers displayed a range of negative emotional responses to the experiment even as they continued to obey, sometimes pleading with the experimenters to stop the experiment while still participating in it. One teacher believed that he had killed the learner and was moved to tears when he eventually found out that he had not.

Milgram included several variants on the original design of the experiment. In one, the teachers were allowed to select their own voltage levels. In this case, only about 2.5% of participants used the maximum shock level, indicating that they were not inclined to do so without the prompting of an authority figure. In another, there were three teachers, two of whom were not test subjects, but instead had been instructed to protest against the shocks. The existence of peers protesting the experiment made the volunteer teachers less likely to obey. Teachers were also less likely to obey in a variant where they could see the learner and were forced to interact with him.

The Milgram experiment has been highly controversial, both for the ethics of its design and for the reliability of its results and conclusions. It is commonly accepted that the ethics of the experiment would be rejected by mainstream science today, due not only to the handling of the deception involved but also to the extreme stress placed on the teachers, who often reacted emotionally to the experiment and were not debriefed . Some teachers were actually left believing they had genuinely and repeatedly shocked a learner before having the truth revealed to them later. Later researchers examining Milgram’s data also found that the experimenters conducting the tests had sometimes gone off-script in their attempts to coerce the teachers into continuing, and noted that some teachers guessed that they were the subjects of the experiment. However, attempts to validate Milgram’s findings in more ethical ways have often produced similar results.

The Milgram Experiment: How Far Will You Go to Obey an Order?

Understand the infamous study and its conclusions about human nature

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• Ph.D., Psychology, University of California - Santa Barbara
• B.A., Psychology and Peace & Conflict Studies, University of California - Berkeley

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.

Key Takeaways: The Milgram Experiment

• The goal of the Milgram experiment was to test the extent of humans' willingness to obey orders from an authority figure.
• Participants were told by an experimenter to administer increasingly powerful electric shocks to another individual. Unbeknownst to the participants, shocks were fake and the individual being shocked was an actor.
• The majority of participants obeyed, even when the individual being shocked screamed in pain.
• The experiment has been widely criticized on ethical and scientific grounds.

Milgram’s Famous Experiment

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.

Critiques of the Milgram Experiment

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.

Variations on the Milgram Experiment

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.

Replicating the Milgram Experiment

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 Legacy

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.

• Baker, Peter C. “Electric Schlock: Did Stanley Milgram's Famous Obedience Experiments Prove Anything?” Pacific Standard (2013, Sep. 10). https://psmag.com/social-justice/electric-schlock-65377
• Burger, Jerry M. "Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?."  American Psychologist 64.1 (2009): 1-11. http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2008-19206-001
• Gilovich, Thomas, Dacher Keltner, and Richard E. Nisbett. Social Psychology . 1st edition, W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.
• Hollander, Matthew. “How to Be a Hero: Insight From the Milgram Experiment.” HuffPost Contributor Network (2015, Apr. 29). https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-to-be-a-hero-insight-_b_6566882
• Jarrett, Christian. “New Analysis Suggests Most Milgram Participants Realised the ‘Obedience Experiments’ Were Not Really Dangerous.” The British Psychological Society: Research Digest (2017, Dec. 12). https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/12/12/interviews-with-milgram-participants-provide-little-support-for-the-contemporary-theory-of-engaged-followership/
• Perry, Gina. “The Shocking Truth of the Notorious Milgram Obedience Experiments.” Discover Magazine Blogs (2013, Oct. 2). http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2013/10/02/the-shocking-truth-of-the-notorious-milgram-obedience-experiments/
• Romm, Cari. “Rethinking One of Psychology's Most Infamous Experiments.” The Atlantic (2015, Jan. 28) . https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/rethinking-one-of-psychologys-most-infamous-experiments/384913/
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Milgram’s experiments on obedience to authority.

• Stephen Gibson Stephen Gibson Heriot-Watt University, School of Social Sciences
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.511
• Published online: 30 June 2020

Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience to authority are among the most influential and controversial social scientific studies ever conducted. They remain staples of introductory psychology courses and textbooks, yet their influence reaches far beyond psychology, with myriad other disciplines finding lessons in them. Indeed, the experiments have long since broken free of the confines of academia, occupying a place in popular culture that is unrivaled among psychological experiments. The present article begins with an overview of Milgram’s account of his experimental procedure and findings, before focussing on recent scholarship that has used materials from Milgram’s archive to challenge many of the long-held assumptions about the experiments. Three areas in which our understanding of the obedience experiments has undergone a radical shift in recent years are the subject of particular focus. First, work that has identified new ethical problems with Milgram’s studies is summarized. Second, hitherto unknown methodological variations in Milgram’s experimental procedures are considered. Third, the interactions that took place in the experimental sessions themselves are explored. This work has contributed to a shift in how we see the obedience experiments. Rather than viewing the experiments as demonstrations of people’s propensity to follow orders, it is now clear that people did not follow orders in Milgram’s experiments. The experimenter did a lot more than simply issue orders, and when he did, participants found it relatively straightforward to defy them. These arguments are discussed in relation to the definition of obedience that has typically been adopted in psychology, the need for further historical work on Milgram’s experiments, and the possibilities afforded by the development of a broader project of secondary qualitative analysis of laboratory interaction in psychology experiments.

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What makes good people turn cruel? As the world learned about the devastating cruelty committed by the Nazis during World War II, this was the question many psychologists were asking themselves. Milgram wasn't convinced by the explanation that German people that engaged in these cruel acts were inherently evil or that the antisemitism distorted their judgement to a point where they saw genocide as a reasonable choice. 

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What were the findings of the original Milgram study?

How does Milgram's study support agency theory?

What situational factors were found to influence obedience in Milgram's variation studies?

What were the findings of Bickman's (1974) study?

Outline the findings of the Hofling's (1966) study.

How can the autonomous state be described?

Do the predictions of the Agency Theory generalise to other cultures?

When does the agentic shift occur?

What is the agentic state?

Define legitimate authority.

What are the strengths of the Agentic Theory?

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According to Milgram, the cruel acts so many people engaged in during the Holocaust can be explained by obedience . Today we will take a closer look at Milgram's Agency Theory, which attempts to explain this phenomenon.

• First, we will discuss Stanley Milgram's agency theory, discussing Milgram's agency theory of obedience .
• We will also provide a Stanley Milgram experiment summary to cover our bases.
• Finally, we will cover Milgram's agency theory evaluation, diving into the strengths of Milgram's agency theory and its weaknesses.

Stanley Milgram's Agency Theory: Psychology

Agency theory is based on Milgram's views on obedience to authority figures. During his earlier experiments, Milgram observed participants go through moral dilemmas and experience an agentic shift, where they obeyed the orders of authority figures as they became agents of the authority figure. The participants placed the consequences of their actions on the authority figure, not themselves.

When we make decisions about how to behave, we typically consider the consequences of our actions. This is because we feel responsible for our own behaviour. Milgram called this the autonomous state .

We are in an autonomous state when we f eel personally responsible for our own decisions and actions. In an autonomous state, we are thinking for ourselves.

Despite participants arriving at Milgram's experiments in an autonomous state, they experienced an agentic shift, which we will discuss more below.

However, what happens if someone else has decided and orders you to follow them? Milgram argued that in situations when we are asked to do something by a legitimate authority figure, we don't always think about what the consequences of that behaviour will be.

A reputable figure has decided, and we are just following orders. This is what Milgram called the agentic state , caused by an agentic shift .

We shift into the agentic state when we follow orders from authority and attribute the consequences of the action to the authority but not to ourselves. We become agents for them, acting on their behalf without taking personal responsibility.

Legitimate authority is a person in power who has the right to give out orders.

The capacity for an agentic shift from an autonomous to an agentic state was proposed as an evolutionary adaptation that allowed humans to create organised and hierarchical social structures.

Stanley Milgram didn't necessarily believe we are born to obey, but rather obedience develops when our capacity to obey is reinforced by our experiences in hierarchical societies that reward obedience.

Milgram's Agentic Theory accounts for both the influence of nature (the evolutionary capacity to obey) and nurture (societal reinforcement of obedience).

Milgram's Agency Theory: Binding Factors

Milgram noted certain factors were required to maintain the agentic state, known as binding factors. After entering an agentic state, participants were kept in the state due to:

• Pressures of the authority figure and surroundings
• Reluctance to disobey and disrupt
• Legitimacy of the authority figure (detailed more below)

Milgram's Agency Theory of Obedience: The Moral Strain

Not all authority figures will be moral and just. Yet, our need to obey often doesn't discriminate between orders we agree with and those we don't agree with.

So, what happens when we are asked to do something we don't consider moral? Milgram proposes that such scenarios result in an internal conflict, resulting in a moral strain when people are in an agentic state.

• Moral strain is the psychological distress which can be experienced when one follows an order from an authority that is against one's own beliefs.

To cope with the discomfort of a moral strain, people can enter into denial and refuse to accept the reality of their behaviour. Others may display avoidance behaviour, try to minimise their involvement, or engage in less severe actions than ordered.

According to Milgram, entering the agentic state can relieve people of some of the guilt associated with their behaviour and decrease the effects of moral strain.

Stanley Milgram Experiment Summary

To test out his theory, Milgram conducted a famous electric shock study in 1963. The study was conducted in a laboratory, and forty male participants participated in the experiment.

• Milgram used deception to avoid social desirability bias. Participants were told they were participating in a learning study that was supposed to investigate whether punishment with electric shocks can enhance learning.
• As the 'teachers', participants were asked to administer electric shocks of increasing voltage (from 15V to 450V) to the 'learners' anytime they made a mistake.
• The learners were, in fact, confederates - actors that pretended to be real participants.
• Milgram found that 65% of participants obeyed and administered the potentially lethal (450V) electric shocks to the confederate, knowing the danger associated with the action.

It was concluded that the agentic theory could predict people's behaviour as most people obeyed, even when asked to do something cruel and unethical.

Stanley Milgram's Study Variations

Later Milgram conducted 19 more study variations investigating the influence of different situational factors on participants' obedience. Some of the situational factors that influenced obedience included proximity to the victim, location of the experiment and the uniform worn by the authority.

When the participants had to be near the learner, the proportion of participants who obeyed dropped by over a half.

The participants' obedience also dropped if the experiment location was less legitimate.

When the orders were given by an ordinary-looking person rather than a professional-looking experimenter in a lab coat, the level of obedience dropped to only 20%.

The importance of wearing a uniform was later supported by the study of Bickman (1974 ) . In his study, a male researcher dressed either in a guard uniform, a milkman uniform or no uniform asked strangers on the streets of Brooklyn to perform an action.

He found that if the man giving out orders was dressed in a guard uniform, 76% of people obeyed; if he was dressed in a milkman uniform, 47% of people obeyed; and if he was wearing no uniform, only 30% of people obeyed.

Milgram's Agency Theory Evaluation

Milgram's agency theory has received a lot of support. However, some argue that it doesn't fully account for the research findings and people's behaviour in the real world. Let's examine the strengths and limitations of Milgram's theory.

Strengths of Milgram's Agency Theory

One strength of Milgram's theory is that it produces testable experimental predictions . The theory predicts that if ordered by an authority, the average person will be capable of committing even immoral acts as the responsibility is shifted to the authority figure.

Moreover, the theory has been largely supported by existing studies, including the studies conducted by Milgram and the naturalistic Hofling (1966) study. The theory is also supported by cross-cultural research (Blass, 2012).

Hofling (1966) conducted a field study to test Milgram's predictions in a naturalistic setting. Twenty-two nurses were asked by the researcher, posing as an unverified doctor on the phone to administer twice the maximum amount of an unauthorised drug to a patient. Twenty-one of them obeyed the order, even though it was against the hospital rules.

Blass (2012) reviewed ten studies that applied Milgram's paradigm to study obedience in different countries worldwide.

They found Milgram's predictions to generalise cross-culturally. The mean obedience rate in the US was around 61%; in comparison, the mean obedience rate in non-US studies was 66%.

Another strength of the theory is its ability to explain to some extent why people engaged in historical atrocities like the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide.

It was reported that during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, 800,000 members of the Tutsi minority were slaughtered over a span of 100 days. Around 200,000 civilians were involved in the killings.

Many of them later reported the pressure from the authorities as a strong motive for their actions. However, some perpetrators reported being motivated by personal motives like hatred and prejudice .

Limitations of Milgram's Agency Theory

The Agency Theory has been criticised for portraying people as passive and supporting the idea of social determinism. The theory doesn't account for people's personal motives to commit immoral acts. People can be motivated not only by the pressure from the authority but also by their personal feelings of prejudice and hatred, as the reports of the Rwanda genocide showed.

Moreover, the theory doesn't explain individual differences in obedience. After all, not everyone in the Milgram study obeyed the authority.

The Agency Theory focuses mostly on situational factors influencing obedience and can be contrasted with theories focusing on individual factors, like the Authoritarian Personality Theory, which predicts that some people are more likely to obey due to their personal characteristics.

Milgram’s Agency theory - Key takeaways

• Milgram's Agency Theory proposes the existence of an autonomous and an agentic state. We are in an autonomous state when we f eel personally responsible for our own decisions and actions.
• We shift into the agentic state when we follow orders from authority and attribute the consequences of the action to the authority but not to ourselves.
• The strengths of Milgram's theory include its ability to produce testable predictions and explain people's behaviour during historical events. It is also supported by many studies on obedience conducted across cultures.

Milgram's Agency Theory does not account for individual differences in obedience and can be criticised for supporting the idea of social determinism.

Flashcards in Milgrams Agency Theory 15

Milgram found that 65% of participants obeyed to administer potentially lethal (450V) electric shocks to the confederate, knowing the danger associated with the action. 

Milgram's experiment found that most participants obeyed the authority even when asked to administer painful and potentially lethal electric shocks. This is not a decision that most people would decide to make on their own however when ordered by an authority figure participants followed the orders, suggesting they entered into an agentic state.

Proximity to the victim, location of the experiment and the uniform worn by the authority. 

Bickman found that people are more likely to obey a man wearing a guard uniform than a man wearing a milkman uniform or wearing no uniform at all.

In Hofling's study, twenty-two nurses were asked by the researcher on the phone to administer twice the maximum amount of an unauthorised drug to a patient. Twenty-one of them obeyed the order, even though it was against the hospital rules. 

The autonomous state can be characterised by a feeling of personal responsibility for our own decisions and actions.

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Frequently Asked Questions about Milgrams Agency Theory

Is Milgram's experiment reliable?

Milgram's experiment used a standardised procedure which allows replications that could corroborate its reliability. Since the replications of the original experiment found similar findings, it can be concluded that Milgram's experiment was reliable. 

What can we learn from Milgram experiment?

Milgram's experiment suggests that if an agentic shift occurs, people will obey authority figures even if personally they consider the orders to be immoral. Milgram's studies support his Agency Theory which has some potential to explain cruel behaviour associated with historical events, like the Holocaust or the Rwanda genocide.

Why was Milgram's experiment criticized?

Milgram's experiment can be criticised for the use of a biased sample, artificial environment, the use of deception and for not protecting the participants from psychological harm. Later it was also uncovered that participants were coerced by the experimenter to administer the shocks even after they refused to; some were also lied to and assured the learner wants to continue. 

What is a strength of Milgram's agency theory?

The strengths of Milgram's theory include its ability to produce testable predictions and explain people's behaviour during historical events. It is also supported by many studies on obedience conducted across cultures.

How does Milgram's study support agency theory?

Milgram's experiment found that most participants obeyed the authority even when asked to administer painful and potentially lethal electric shocks. This is not a decision that most people would make on their own however when ordered by an authority figure, participants followed the orders, suggesting they entered into an agentic state.

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Explanations for Obedience - Milgram (1963)

Last updated 22 Mar 2021

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Milgram (1963) conducted one of the most famous and influential psychological investigations of obedience. He wanted to find out if ordinary American citizens would obey an unjust order from an authority figure and inflict pain on another person because they were instructed to.

Milgram’s sample consisted of 40 male participants from a range of occupations and backgrounds. The participants were all volunteers who had responded to an advert in a local paper, which offered $4.50 to take part in an experiment on ‘punishment and learning’.

The 40 participants were all invited to a laboratory at Yale University and upon arrival they met with the experimenter and another participant, Mr Wallace, who were both confederates.

The experimenter explained that one person would be randomly assigned the role of teacher and the other, a learner. However, the real participant was always assigned the role of teacher. The experimenter explained that the teacher, the real participant, would read the learner a series of word pairs and then test their recall. The learner, who was positioned in an adjacent room, would indicate his choice using a system of lights. The teacher was instructed to administer an electric shock ever time the learner made a mistake and to increase the voltage after each mistake.

The teacher watched the learner being strapped to the electric chair and was given a sample electric shock to convince them that the procedure was real. The learner wasn’t actually strapped to the chair and gave predetermined answers to the test. As the electric shocks increased the learner’s screams, which were recorded, became louder and more dramatic. At 180 volts the learner complained of a weak heart. At 300 volts he banged on the wall and demanded to leave and at 315 volts he became silent, to give the illusions that was unconscious, or even dead.

The experiment continued until the teacher refused to continue, or 450 volts was reached. If the teacher tried to stop the experiment, the experimenter would respond with a series of prods, for example: ‘The experiment requires that you continue.’ Following the experiment the participants were debriefed.

Milgram found that all of the real participants went to at least 300 volts and 65% continued until the full 450 volts. He concluded that under the right circumstances ordinary people will obey unjust orders.

Milgram’s study has been heavily criticised for breaking numerous ethical guidelines, including: deception , right to withdraw and protection from harm.

Milgram deceived his participants as he said the experiment was on ‘punishment and learning’, when in fact he was measuring obedience, and he pretended the learner was receiving electric shocks. In addition, it was very difficult for participants with withdraw from the experiment, as the experimenter prompted the participants to continue. Finally, many of the participants reported feeling exceptionally stressed and anxious while taking part in the experiment and therefore they were not protect from psychological harm. This is an issue, as Milgram didn’t respect his participants, some of whom felt very guilt following the experiment, knowing that they could have harmed another person. However, it must be noted that it was essential for Milgram to deceive his participants and remove their right to withdraw to test obedience and produce valid results. Furthermore, he did debrief his participants following the experiment and 83.7% of participants said that they were happy to have taken part in the experiment and contribute to scientific research.

Milgram’s study has been criticised for lacking ecological validity. Milgram tested obedience in a laboratory, which is very different to real-life situations of obedience, where people are often asked to follow more subtle instructions, rather than administering electric shocks. As a result we are unable to generalise his findings to real life situations of obedience and cannot conclude that people would obey less severe instructions in the same way.

Finally, Milgram’s research lacked population validity. Milgram used a bias sample of 40 male volunteers, which means we are unable to generalise the results to other populations, in particular females, and cannot conclude if female participants would respond in a similar way.

• Ethical Issues
• Right to withdraw
• Protection from harm

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Experimental Method In Psychology

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

The experimental method involves the manipulation of variables to establish cause-and-effect relationships. The key features are controlled methods and the random allocation of participants into controlled and experimental groups .

What is an Experiment?

An experiment is an investigation in which a hypothesis is scientifically tested. An independent variable (the cause) is manipulated in an experiment, and the dependent variable (the effect) is measured; any extraneous variables are controlled.

An advantage is that experiments should be objective. The researcher’s views and opinions should not affect a study’s results. This is good as it makes the data more valid  and less biased.

There are three types of experiments you need to know:

1. Lab Experiment

A laboratory experiment in psychology is a research method in which the experimenter manipulates one or more independent variables and measures the effects on the dependent variable under controlled conditions.

A laboratory experiment is conducted under highly controlled conditions (not necessarily a laboratory) where accurate measurements are possible.

The researcher uses a standardized procedure to determine where the experiment will take place, at what time, with which participants, and in what circumstances.

Participants are randomly allocated to each independent variable group.

Examples are Milgram’s experiment on obedience and  Loftus and Palmer’s car crash study .

• Strength : It is easier to replicate (i.e., copy) a laboratory experiment. This is because a standardized procedure is used.
• Strength : They allow for precise control of extraneous and independent variables. This allows a cause-and-effect relationship to be established.
• Limitation : The artificiality of the setting may produce unnatural behavior that does not reflect real life, i.e., low ecological validity. This means it would not be possible to generalize the findings to a real-life setting.
• Limitation : Demand characteristics or experimenter effects may bias the results and become confounding variables .

2. Field Experiment

A field experiment is a research method in psychology that takes place in a natural, real-world setting. It is similar to a laboratory experiment in that the experimenter manipulates one or more independent variables and measures the effects on the dependent variable.

However, in a field experiment, the participants are unaware they are being studied, and the experimenter has less control over the extraneous variables .

Field experiments are often used to study social phenomena, such as altruism, obedience, and persuasion. They are also used to test the effectiveness of interventions in real-world settings, such as educational programs and public health campaigns.

An example is Holfing’s hospital study on obedience .

• Strength : behavior in a field experiment is more likely to reflect real life because of its natural setting, i.e., higher ecological validity than a lab experiment.
• Strength : Demand characteristics are less likely to affect the results, as participants may not know they are being studied. This occurs when the study is covert.
• Limitation : There is less control over extraneous variables that might bias the results. This makes it difficult for another researcher to replicate the study in exactly the same way.

3. Natural Experiment

A natural experiment in psychology is a research method in which the experimenter observes the effects of a naturally occurring event or situation on the dependent variable without manipulating any variables.

Natural experiments are conducted in the day (i.e., real life) environment of the participants, but here, the experimenter has no control over the independent variable as it occurs naturally in real life.

Natural experiments are often used to study psychological phenomena that would be difficult or unethical to study in a laboratory setting, such as the effects of natural disasters, policy changes, or social movements.

For example, Hodges and Tizard’s attachment research (1989) compared the long-term development of children who have been adopted, fostered, or returned to their mothers with a control group of children who had spent all their lives in their biological families.

Here is a fictional example of a natural experiment in psychology:

Researchers might compare academic achievement rates among students born before and after a major policy change that increased funding for education.

In this case, the independent variable is the timing of the policy change, and the dependent variable is academic achievement. The researchers would not be able to manipulate the independent variable, but they could observe its effects on the dependent variable.

• Strength : behavior in a natural experiment is more likely to reflect real life because of its natural setting, i.e., very high ecological validity.
• Strength : Demand characteristics are less likely to affect the results, as participants may not know they are being studied.
• Strength : It can be used in situations in which it would be ethically unacceptable to manipulate the independent variable, e.g., researching stress .
• Limitation : They may be more expensive and time-consuming than lab experiments.
• Limitation : There is no control over extraneous variables that might bias the results. This makes it difficult for another researcher to replicate the study in exactly the same way.

Key Terminology

Ecological validity.

The degree to which an investigation represents real-life experiences.

Experimenter effects

These are the ways that the experimenter can accidentally influence the participant through their appearance or behavior.

Demand characteristics

The clues in an experiment lead the participants to think they know what the researcher is looking for (e.g., the experimenter’s body language).

Independent variable (IV)

The variable the experimenter manipulates (i.e., changes) is assumed to have a direct effect on the dependent variable.

Dependent variable (DV)

Variable the experimenter measures. This is the outcome (i.e., the result) of a study.

Extraneous variables (EV)

All variables which are not independent variables but could affect the results (DV) of the experiment. EVs should be controlled where possible.

Confounding variables

Variable(s) that have affected the results (DV), apart from the IV. A confounding variable could be an extraneous variable that has not been controlled.

Random Allocation

Randomly allocating participants to independent variable conditions means that all participants should have an equal chance of participating in each condition.

The principle of random allocation is to avoid bias in how the experiment is carried out and limit the effects of participant variables.

Order effects

Changes in participants’ performance due to their repeating the same or similar test more than once. Examples of order effects include:

(i) practice effect: an improvement in performance on a task due to repetition, for example, because of familiarity with the task;

(ii) fatigue effect: a decrease in performance of a task due to repetition, for example, because of boredom or tiredness.

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Milgram (1963)

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Strengths and Weaknesses of the Milgram Obedience Study Short Summary

Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the Milgram obedience study. Should the study have taken place? Milgram’s study is a very controversial study as it broke many ethical guidelines and has many methodological issues, but it also had many strengths. One strength of the Milgram study on obedience is that the experiment was reliable as it can be replicated and the results are consistent. The fact that the experiment was a Lab experiment makes the study even more reliable as lab experiments are easy to replicate and mean that the experimenter has a lot of control over what participants are asked to do, the situation they are in and the environment they are in. Another strength of the Milgram study is that both quantitative and qualitative data were recorded. This meant that Milgram could come to the correct conclusions as he had both quantitative and qualitative data to refer to when coming to his conclusion.

Another strength of the Milgram study was that the information that was gained about obedience from Milgram’s study has proven useful in understanding why people commit certain crimes and in helping to predict some atrocities before they happen, another reason Milgram’s results were important was that they helped people understand why and how the holocaust happened and therefore, how to stop history repeating itself. One final strength of Milgram’s study was that after the experiment was stopped- either when the experimenter/Mr Williams had used all the verbal prods or when the maximum voltage was reached- all participants were thoroughly de-briefed and de-hoaxed and 100% of participants left the experiment feeling generally good. Milgram also kept in touch with his participants for years after the experiment as part of the de-briefing to keep that his study left no lasting mental or physical damage.

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One weakness of the Milgram study on obedience was that the Right to Withdraw was not made explicit at the beginning of the experiment, and it is argued that some subjects felt obliged to continue because of the money ($4.50) that the received upon arrival at Yale university or because of the presence of the experimenter who was described to be ‘stern’ looking and intimidating. Furthermore, it can be argued that the verbal prods used by Mr Williams when participants questioned the experiment refused participants the right to withdraw, as they were quite intimidating i.e. one prod used was “you have no other choice you must continue teacher.”

Another weakness of the study was that Milgram broke the ethical guideline of ‘protection of subject’. This is because he caused participants considerable amounts of stress for the duration of the experiment. Some participants were shaking, laughing hysterically; nervously giggling, chain smoking, sweating heavily and one participant had a seizure. Therefore, it can be argued that Milgram put his participant’s health at risk, and the subject’s mental health may also have been affected by the experiment and the tasks they were asked to do.

Another weakness on Milgram’s study was that he deceived the participants in many ways- participants weren’t aware Mr Williams and Mr Wallace were actors. Participants were also unaware that the shocks weren’t real and therefore, that the suffering of the learner was faked. Furthermore, participants weren’t told what the experiment was testing/ weren’t aware of the nature of the experiment. Although deception played a huge role in Milgram’s experiment, and it breached an ethical guideline, deception was essential to the design and needed if the experiment was to work, as if subjects knew what the experiment was actually testing there was a high chance that they would develop demand characteristics, and therefore, the results would be unreliable.

Another weakness of the study was the sample itself. The sample was made up of 40 men, all from the same region of America and aged between 20-50 years old. This made the sample unrepresentative and biased as not only was they just males, but they were also from the same region in America but also only people that read the advertisement/the newspaper it was advertised in would have seen the advert and been able to volunteer so therefore all of the volunteers would be very similar people, and this meant that the sample was unrepresentative for the rest of the country/population.

Another weakness of the experiment was the sampling method. The sampling method used was volunteer/self-selected sampling. This is the most unrepresentative of all the sampling methods. This is because most normal people don’t volunteer themselves for anything and therefore, the volunteers themselves aren’t, by definition, aren’t standard people. There is also an essence of the snowballing sampling method as with volunteering subjects may volunteer friends/family to volunteer with them, so they don’t have participate in the experiment alone, and it can sometimes be comforting to share experiences with one another. This is therefore also very unrepresentative as participants tend to invite a person like themselves, which makes the sample extremely unrepresentative/biased another weakness of the study is the research method used. The experiment/research method was a lab experiment or technically a pilot/pre-experiment.as it was supposed to be a ‘tester’ experiment that Milgram did in the USA before taking it over to Germany to test his hypothesis that ‘Germans are different’. One problem with the experimental design of a lab experiment is the realism of the environment the subjects are in and the tasks they are expected to complete- In the context of this experiment- few people find themselves in a.) A university laboratory with an experimenter or b.) Operating and electric shock machine, especially to harm another person. However, equally it is difficult to set up a lab experiment so that people will act/re-act the same way they would in real life.

As for the question ‘Should the study have taken place’, I personally think the general idea of the study was interesting and the information that would have been discovered about obedience and destructive obedience as a result of the study would have been invaluable, but I think the way the study was done/The tasks the participants were made to do weren’t as ethically right as they could have been. But equally the experiment may not have worked as well had the tasks been different as this experiment showed how people reacted in extreme stress and when they felt that they couldn’t disobey the orders given to them even when it was to hurt another human being. In other words it highlights the internal conflict that the participants had between the want to not harm others and the need to obey orders. In conclusion I think the study should have taken place as the information we gained from it helped us in developing our understanding of obedience and destructive obedience as well as helping us understand why certain atrocities- like the holocaust- happened and how to stop them happening again.

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One contemporary study: burger, (2009).

You need to know the APFC of Burger in detail so that you can describe it, evaluate it and potentially compare it with other studies. You will also need to be able to use it to evaluate Milgram’s agency theory and also to demonstrate how obedience studies  can be conducted with greater regard for modern ethical guidelines. It is also excellent for answering questions on the effect of personality and situation on obedience, what a ripping study! 

Burger (2009) conducted a partial replication of Milgram’s experiment on obedience; however he made some critical alterations to the procedure in order to meet ethical guidelines. He concluded that Milgram’s findings were not era-bound and that people are as obedient today as they were in the 1960s. He also noted unlike previous replications, that women were slightly more obedient than men but the finding was not significant, and that the personality trait ‘empathic concern’ is not related to obedience, although there was some evidence that ‘desire for control’ was related to obedience but only in the baseline condition and not in the modelled refusal condition . Finally, he concluded that witnessing an act of defiance at 90V had very little effect on Pps’ own behaviour as 63% of Pps still continued shocking the learner up to 450V.

Here is my PowerPoint and accompanying handout:  burger-revision-notes  and  one-contemporary-study-from-social-psychology

However, it is also useful for you to read from the original paper:  burger-original

You need to learn the procedural details (AO1) with great care. You might like to try this True and False quiz to gauge how much you know!  burger-procedure-t-or-f

Once you have done this you will be able to create some “cheeky” chains of reason, and some “cracking” competing arguments (OOhhhh) with your accurate (AAAAAHHH) and thorough knowledge of the study! Time to get GRAVEing.

So you think you can evaluate Burger, let’s see how Dre got on!  burger-dont-be-dre

Here is a model essay evaluating Burger’s study, super long as ever but as you know you don’t havr to write anywhere near this much for full marks you just need to follow my simply ATCHOO(BC) top tips for >8markers .  Click here for model essay.

Practice Questions:

• Describe the…
• procedure (4)
• findings (4)
• conclusions (2)

of one contemporary study you have learned about as part of social psychology.

2. Describe one contemporary study you have learned about as part of social psychology (5)

3. Explain one strength and one weakness of the contemporary study you described above (2+2)

3. Evaluate one contemporary study you have learned about as part of social psychology (8)

4. This study used an independent measures design with random allocation of participants to the two conditions. Explain why this is a strength of the study (2)

5. Burger told his Pps that he might be videotaping the study and then he actually did tape everything using two hidden cameras. State the correct name for this technique and explain why the strengths of these design decisions (3)

6. Give one strength of Burger’s study relating to reliability (2)

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OpenAI's Sora is coming. Early testers reveal the pros and cons of the text-to-video generator.

• OpenAI teased its text-to-video generator Sora in February.
• Sam Altman's company has yet to announce a release date, but it is expected later this year.
• Early testers spoke to Business Insider about Sora's potential — and limitations.

OpenAI set tongues wagging when it teased its text-to-video generator Sora back in February.

The company shared striking videos generated by Sora, which takes its name from the Japanese word for "sky."

OpenAI has not yet announced an official release date for Sora's public launch, but its rollout is widely anticipated and expected to come within the next few months.

OpenAI gave access to several visual artists, designers, and filmmakers to get feedback on how to advance the model in a way that would be most helpful for creative professionals.

Four of the artists and early testers of Sora spoke to Business Insider about their experiences using the model and some of the tool's positive aspects, as well as its drawbacks.

Charlotte Triebus, a performance artist and choreographer, has been testing out Sora for about four months.

She prompted Sora to generate a video of human drooling but said that Sora refused.

Triebus finds that it can generate people of diverse genders. However, it still has issues with physics, which she finds interesting artistically because it gives her a new way of thinking about the human body.

The German artist uses Sora to create ideas or sketch visions that she can then use in her choreography with dancers. The video she generated with Sora, which OpenAI shared on YouTube, depicts a human body with extra limbs.

Triebus said Sora would display a diverse group of people when she first entered a prompt, but then it would turn them into other ethnicities or mostly white people after she entered other prompts.

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This topic was raised when Triebus delivered feedback to OpenAI, and she was told the company was working to resolve the issue.

Overall, the artist is very excited about Sora's possibilities: "Artistically, it is something that can really assist us in visualizing things and exploring things."

OpenAI says on its blog that it's working with "red teamers" to test Sora in areas including bias, hateful content and misinformation. It is also developing tools to detect if a video was generated by Sora.

It's helpful for exploring ideas

Architect Tim Fu has used AI to experiment with architectural design for about three years and said it has automated the processes involved.

A few years ago, Fu started using models such as Midjourney, which he said has helped create an entirely different mode of practice. AI has turned the artist into more of an art curator, as tools like Sora can help visualize ideas that can be tweaked until the desired outcome is reached.

"The idea is to get an experiential perspective of what is a new way of architecture, and how AI can help us design and create a new world, and how we get new experiences," Fu said.

Limitations

In Fu's view, using Sora in architectural design has its limitations.

"It's regurgitating its database, and you can tell that some of it is dated, especially in urban design," he said.

Fu's studio wants to simulate what urban design will look like in 100 years or so.

"But as you type something futuristic, you either get a sci-fi database or a super CGI-looking database, which obviously is the type of stuff that exists in the database, probably from sci-fi films or CGI renders, or it becomes ultra-realistic camera angles and resembles films of the past," he said.

"There's no sweet spot in between, and there are definite limitations to what's in the database and what we want to create."

OpenAI told BI that a diffusion model like Sora was not designed to regurgitate videos. Instead, it learns concepts and then creates original videos based on its understanding of the physical world.

Fu thinks OpenAI should release Sora soon as "it's no longer that special, with competitors catching up."

Rivals Luma AI and Runway have already released their models, which allow users to upload their own visual materials as prompts.

He said Sora's capabilities in generating urban architecture were "kind of disappointing," and finds Runway better because of its image-to-video feature.

Democratize storytelling

Manuel Sainsily, a TED speaker, artist, and extended reality (XR) instructor at McGill University, and William Selviz, an immersive and virtual production director and designer, collaborated on a project called Protopica to explore how Sora could leverage stories from around the world.

Sainsily, from Guadeloupe, and Selviz, who is Venezuelan and grew up in Kuwait, created a short film to do just that.

In their view, Sora is helpful in telling stories they want to share that are hard to picture or even film because of accessibility.

"The goal for us was really to tell stories that resonate with our cultures and that can put a little bit of a pin on the map for all those stories that don't have a chance to be told without those tools," Sainsily said.

Watch: Accenture CMO Jill Kramer talks about how generative AI will enhance, not diminish, the power of marketing: video

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