Milgram experiment half a century later

Profession: executioner

In 1961, Adolf Eichmann, the immediate leader of the mass extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany, was tried in Jerusalem. The process was important not only because the offender was overtaken by a well-deserved retribution, but also because of the huge influence that he had on the development of modern ideas about human social behavior.

The strongest impression on those who watched the course of the trial was made by the line of defense chosen by Eichmann, who emphasized that, while operating the conveyor of death, he was only doing his job, following the orders and requirements of the laws. And this is very similar to the truth: the defendant did not at all give the impression of a monster, a sadist, a manic anti-Semite, or a pathological personality. He was incredibly, terribly normal.

Eichmann’s trial and a detailed analysis of the psychological and social mechanisms that make normal people commit terrible atrocities is the subject of Hannah Arendt’s classic of moral philosophy, covering the trial for The New Yorker, The Banality of Evil. Eichmann in Jerusalem (Europe, 2008).

“Experience must be brought to the end”

Another equally famous study of the banality of evil was conducted by the Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram, who proved experimentally that, indeed, the most ordinary people, as a rule, are so prone to obeying a figure endowed with authority that, “merely” following an order, they are capable of extreme cruelty towards other people, towards whom they have neither malice nor hatred¹.

The Obedience Experiment, better known simply as the Milgram Experiment, was started a few months after the start of the trial of Eichmann and under his influence, and the first work on its results appeared in 1963.

The experiment was set up like this. It was presented to the participants as a study of the effects of pain on memory. The experiment involved an experimenter, a subject (“teacher”) and an actor who played the role of another subject (“student”). It was stated that the “student” should memorize pairs of words from a long list, and the “teacher” – to test his memory and punish for each mistake with an increasingly strong electric shock.

Before the start of the action, the “teacher” received a demonstration shock with a voltage of 45 V. He was also assured that electric shocks would not cause serious harm to the health of the “student”. Then the “teacher” went into another room, began to give the “student” tasks and, with each mistake, pressed the button, supposedly giving an electric shock (in fact, the actor who played the “student” only pretended to receive blows). Starting with 45 V, the “teacher” with each new error had to increase the voltage by 15 V up to 450 V.

If the “teacher” hesitated before giving another “discharge”, the experimenter assured him that he took full responsibility for what was happening, and said: “Please continue. The experience must be completed. You have to do it, you have no choice.” At the same time, however, he did not threaten the doubting “teacher” in any way, including not threatening to deprive him of the reward for participating in the experiment ($4).

In the first version of the experiment, the room in which the “student” was located was isolated, and the “teacher” could not hear him. Only when the force of the “impact” reached 300 volts (all 40 subjects reached this moment, and not one of them stopped earlier!), The “student” actor began to hit the wall, and this is what the “teacher” heard. Soon the “student” calmed down and stopped answering questions.

26 people made it to the very end. They, obeying the order, continued to press the button, even when the “voltage” reached 450 V. On the scale of their “device”, values ​​from 375 to 420 V were marked with the inscription “Danger: the strongest shock”, and the marks 435 and 450 V were simply marked with the sign “ XXX”.

Of course, the experiment was repeated many times, checked and rechecked, slightly varying the conditions (the gender composition of the participants, the degree of pressure from the experimenter, the behavior of the “student” actor). In one of the versions, in particular, when the force of the “blow” reached 150 V, the “student” began to complain about his heart and asked to stop, and the “teacher” heard him. After that, 7 out of 40 people refused to increase the “voltage” beyond the 150-volt mark, but, oddly enough, the same 450 out of 26 reached the end – up to 40 V.

45 Summer Flush

The influence of the Milgram experiment on the professional community was so great that now ethical codes have been developed that make its complete reconstruction impossible.

But in 2008, Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University in the US reproduced Milgram’s experiment.², modifying its conditions taking into account the existing restrictions. In Berger’s experiments, the “voltage” increased only to 150 volts (although the markings on the scale of the “device” went up to the same 450 V), after which the experiment was interrupted.

At the selection stage, participants were weeded out: firstly, those who knew about the Milgram experiment, and secondly, emotionally unstable people. Each of the test subjects was told at least three times that he could interrupt the experience at any stage, while the reward ($50) would not have to be returned. The strength of the demonstration (real) electric shock that the subjects received before the start of the experiment was 15 V.

As it turned out, little had changed in 25 years: out of 40 subjects, 28 (that is, 70%) were ready to continue increasing the voltage even after the “student”, allegedly having received a 150-volt shock, complained of a heart.

For a higher purpose

And now, thanks to archival materials³, which were analyzed by social psychologists from four universities in Australia, Scotland and the United States, found that in the original experiment, everything was actually even worse than we used to think.

The fact is that from reading the works that Milgram himself published, one gets the impression that it was difficult and unpleasant, if not painful, to obey the orders of the participants in the experiment. “I saw a respectable businessman enter the laboratory, smiling and confident. Within 20 minutes he was driven to a nervous breakdown. He trembled, stuttered, constantly tugged at his earlobe and wringed his hands. Once, he hit his forehead with his fist and muttered, “Oh my god, let’s stop this.” Nevertheless, he continued to react to every word of the experimenter and obeyed him unconditionally, ”he wrote.

But examining the feedback records given by the subjects after the experiment ended and their eyes were opened, explaining the true essence of what happened, tells a different story. In the archives of Yale University, such certificates are available regarding the impressions of 659 out of 800 volunteers who participated in various “takes” of the experiment. Most of these people—ordinary, normal people, not sadists or maniacs—showed no sign of remorse. On the contrary, they reported that they were glad to help science.

“This sheds new light on the psychology of submission and is consistent with other available evidence that people who do evil are usually driven not by the desire to do evil, but by the belief that they are doing something worthy and noble,” comments one of the authors of the archival study, Professor Alex Haslam (Alex Haslam).

He is echoed by his colleague in this work, Professor Stephen Reicher (Stephen Reicher): “It can be assumed that we previously misunderstood the ethical and theoretical problems posed by Milgram’s research. One has to ask oneself whether one should care about the well-being of the participants in the experiments by making them think that the infliction of suffering on others can be justified if it was done in the name of a good cause.

The Australian documentary filmmaker and professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, Kathryn Millard, also took part in the study. She used materials found in the archives in her new film, Shock Room, which is now out on screens. The film explores, through cinematic means, how and why people obey criminal orders, and, just as importantly, how and why some still refuse to do evil.

It’s time to once again ask yourself the question: “What would I do?”

¹ S. Milgram «Behavioural Study of Obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology», 1963, vol. 67, № 4.

² J. Burger «Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?» American Psychologist, январь 2009.

³ S. Haslam et al. «Happy to have been of service»: The Yale archive as a window into the engaged followership of participants in Milgram’s ‘obedience’ experiments». British Journal of Social Psychology, сентябрь 2014.