The Milgram Experiment: Will You Obey Authority Against Your Own Morals?
Photo from Cottonbro Studios via Pexels.
Kaviyan Jayalaksshme Srinivasan
Introduction
If the president of the country told you to kill another person would you do it?
No, of course not, right? That would be immoral and unjustified.
But what if I were to tell you that many people would harm countless other human beings and not think twice about it just because they were told to by their leaders to do so.
Inconceivable.
But if someone throws on a white coat, suddenly it becomes explainable.
The Milgram Experiment
How far would people go in obeying an authority figure, even when it conflicts with their moral values?
This is the question the Milgram Experiment sought to find out.
Stanley Milgram, a psychology researcher at Yale University, conducted a series of experiments with the general public intended to measure their level of compliance to authority. The social psychology experiment known as the Milgram Experiment involved three roles: the experimenter, the teacher, and the learner. It went like this: the teacher (the actual subject) and the learner (the paid actor) were told that they were participating in a study of memory and learning capabilities and to see what level of effect that punishment has on performance: they both arrived at the location at the same time.
The experimenter (the facilitator of the experiment) provided two slips of paper to determine their roles. The trick here, however, was that both slips said “teacher” but the actor would lie and say they were the learner.
They then both go to a room where the actor gets strapped onto an “electric chair” and the experimenter would then present themselves in a white lab coat (the authority figure of the experiment) to explain that the learner is strapped so they do not escape.
Showing that the teacher was in a position where they can administer pain without consequence, the experimenter separates them into two different rooms where the learner and teacher can converse with one another but not see each other.
Prior to this separation, the experimenter administers a tiny electric shock to the teacher to familiarize them with the “punishment” they will be administering to the learner.
The teacher is then given a list of word pairs to teach the learner by reading them aloud.
Once the teacher has read through the pairs, they are then instructed to quiz the learner by reading a word from the list and providing four possible options for the correct choice. The learner would choose between buttons.
If the learner incorrectly answers the question, they are administered a shock starting from 15 volts and increasing in 15 volt increments with every wrong answer up until the maximum voltage of 450 volts. If the learner does not respond within 5-10 seconds, the teacher was to shock them. Furthermore, the shocks on the generator were labelled from “slight shock” to “severe shock.” As implied, no shocks were administered, however the subject would believe they are real.
For every shock level, the learner was given pre-recorded tapes to play—screams of people who had been administered each shock level. The learner would then yell, cry, and plead the subject to stop, and as the shock levels increased they would make louder protests, like banging on the wall separating the two, demanding to be let out, talking about their heart conditions, etc. But every time, when the highest shock level was “administered” the learner fell silent.
In the case the teacher/subject wanted to stop, the experimenter would give verbal prompts in the following order:
“Please continue or please go on”
“The experiment requires that you continue”
“It is absolutely essential that you continue”
“You have no other choice. You must go on”
These were said in succession after each time the teacher said they wanted to stop. Now, if the teacher said they wanted to stop after all 4 prompts, the experiment ends. Else, the experiment ended after the highest shock level, 450 volts, was administered 3 times. This shock level is fatal.
In case the teacher worried about the learner’s well-being, the experimenter was given special responses indicating the learner will not suffer permanent damage, and that whether they like it or not, the learner has to keep going until all the pairs are learned correctly.
Observations
The results of this experiment can be separated into two categories: behaviors and statistics.
The subjects exhibited the following behaviors under the stress of obeying orders to harm others:
Sweating
Trembling
Stuttering
Biting lips
Groaning
Seizures
Digging fingernails into flesh
Smiling
Uncontrollable laughter episodes
The statistics reinforce the idea that the subjects are aware of their inhuman actions but are powerless to the situational force keeping them from using their moral compass:
65% of subjects continued to the highest level of 450 volts
100% of the subjects continued at least to 300 volts
14 out of 40 subjects defied the experimenter and stopped at any point between 300-375 volts (causes permanent nerve, heart, and muscular damage: can be fatal)
100% of subjects questioned the procedure; many offered to return the money they were paid to stop hurting the learner
14 out of 40 subjects nervous laughed or smiled under severe stress
13.42 out of 14 was the average perceived pain that the subjects think they administered with 14 being “extremely painful”
Milgram conducted over 18 variations of his experiments with many factors such as proximity, changing the authority figure, presence of peers, etc. Compliance to authority dropped when the subjects were closer to the learner, when they had another subject with them (peers), and when the credibility of the authority figure wasn't backed by logic (rather than political figures the subjects listened to scientific experimenters more often).
In all of his experiments, none of those defiant subjects checked up on the learner to see if they were okay nor to stop the experiment in its entirety either.
What does this mean?
Milgram was led to one of 2 interpretations:
Theory of Conformism: In a group, the subject who has neither the skills nor information needed to make a decision, especially under stress, will leave the decision to those at the top of the hierarchy in the group
Theory of Agentic State: People view themselves as a tool for others to carry out their wishes, therefore detach responsibility from their own actions
Extension
The idea behind the authority figure doesn’t necessarily relate just to one powerful person. More often than not, the authority is a powerful group of people or even a whole class or herd.
In such scenarios many people are being compelled by the fear of social rejection—a power any group of human beings holds over one individual. You have probably heard this referred to as “peer pressure,” or, in more extreme cases, “mob mentality”.
Why does this matter?
Have you ever found yourself making a little fun of a classmate that is “hated” or is perceived to be “weird” by your peers because you were prompted to even though you yourself don’t dislike them?
Or have you ever gone ten over the speed limit on a busy highway because traffic is going at that speed and you don’t want to be honked at again?
Whether it be the class, a mob, politicians, or scientists, the effect of authority, whether you like to admit it or not, hugely causes you to go against your morals even though there is no inherent benefit aside from being socially accepted or some perceived sense of safety.
But then again, is feeling accepted socially really worth compromising your morals for? Maybe safety, but even then to an extent.
Milgram is not saying that conformity is evil; rather he is saying that people tend to conform against righteous values when they have the choice not to.
True evil comes from the lack of self-reflection and adherence to principles even in the face of powerful evil that Milgram wanted to point out. We lose courage and become cruel in the blind obedience to authority.
Are you one to consider yourself a tool for others to use because you are scared of taking responsibility for what you do?
Do you lack the resolve to make your own decisions and have to rely on someone more confident, even if it means that decision will hurt countless others?
Talk is cheap.
Not for days, weeks, or months, but year after year, for every single second of your life, make your own decisions if you can, without feeling compelled by the authority in your life. Only then, by sticking to your moral judgement, can you proclaim you won’t unjustly obey authority.
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