Milgram's Obedience Experiment

You've probably heard about the horrific things that happened during the Holocaust and wondered how normal people could do such terrible things. Stanley Milgram had the same question - he was particularly fascinated by Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking Nazi who claimed he was "just following orders" when put on trial.

Obedience means following orders from someone in authority, and Milgram designed a clever (but ethically questionable) experiment to test just how far people would go. He recruited 40 men aged 20-50 from different backgrounds at the prestigious Yale University, telling them they were studying how punishment affects learning - but that was a lie.

The setup was brilliant in its deception. Participants met "Mr Wallace" (actually an actor) who casually mentioned he had a heart condition. They then drew papers to decide who would be the "teacher" and who the "learner" - but it was rigged so the real participant was always the teacher. The participant experienced a real shock from the machine to make them believe it was genuine.

Key Point: The experiment used elaborate deception to make participants believe they were actually harming another person when they weren't.

The "teacher" had to give increasingly powerful electric shocks whenever the "learner" got questions wrong. The shock machine had switches labelled from "slight shock" all the way up to "danger: severe shock" at 450 volts. Whenever participants hesitated, the experimenter would give prods like "the experiment requires that you continue" to pressure them into carrying on.