Milgram's Obedience Study
You've probably heard stories about people "just following orders" and wondered how that's possible. Milgram's research aimed to understand exactly this - whether ordinary people would give potentially deadly electric shocks simply because an authority figure told them to.
The study was inspired by Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi official responsible for concentration camps who claimed he was "just obeying orders." This made psychologists wonder if the Holocaust could be explained through obedience rather than pure evil.
Milgram's procedure was cleverly deceptive. At Yale University, 40 male volunteers thought they were testing how punishment affects learning. Participants always became the "teacher" whilst confederates played the "learner" and "experimenter." The teacher had to give increasingly powerful electric shocks whenever the learner made mistakes.
The results were absolutely shocking - literally and figuratively. 100% of participants continued up to 300V, and 65% delivered the full 450V. Many showed extreme stress, sweating, trembling, and three even had seizures. Psychology students had predicted only 3% would go to maximum voltage.
Key Insight: Before the study, experts thought almost no one would fully obey - they were completely wrong about human nature.
Milgram's conclusion was chilling: ordinary people are extremely obedient to authority, even when asked to behave inhumanely. It's not evil people who commit atrocities, but normal individuals following orders.