Summary Of Milgram's Obedience Experiment

An obedience experiment directed by Milgram (1974) involved the participant in a laboratory environment as the role of a teacher, pertaining to the effects of punishment on learning (Gibson 2011). Participants were deceived by being told that as part of the experiment they were required to administer an electric shock to the ‘learner’. The participants’ had observed the ‘learners’ (who were confederate in the experiment) in an adjoining room being secured to a chair. The participants were informed that they would be responsible for administering an electric shock to the learner if they were to give an incorrect answer to the participants’ questions. Each time the learner gave an incorrect answer the participants were to administer electric shocks increasing in 15 V increments, with the highest available voltage
The experiment consisted of four standardised prompts, if they were unsuccessful then another two random prompts were added until the participant ended the experiment (Gibson, 2011). According to Holloway (2005), Milgram’s (1974) research attempted to theorise destructive obedience that revolved around the concept of a power related dualism of agency structure and the concept of an agentic state. Suggesting that obedience relied upon an individual entering a psychological state in which a loss of a sense of autonomy as a social being with their actions being controlled by some other agent (Reicher & Haslam, 2012). Conversely, experiments on deception in authoritative contexts conducted by Nissani (1990), argues that the human cognitive system has limitations, therefore individuals could not be relied upon to understand that an apparently benevolent authority is actually malevolent. Consequently, the fundamental reason for the participants behaviour could be conceptual and not the supposed capacity and abandonment of morals of an individual. Russell (2009) suggests that a state of autonomous denial should supersede Milgram’s (1974) concept of