The Milgram experiment was designed to examine conditions under which ordinary citizens willingly submit to authority. The research was part of a series of experiments on obedience conducted by social psychologist Stanley Milgram at Yale University. Specifically, Milgram wanted to find out how much pain people would inflict on others, simply because a person of authority ordered them to do so. In the experiment, an experimental scientist served as the authority figure. Forty men of various backgrounds and ages agreed to participate based on a newspaper ad that advertised a learning study. Respondents were offered a token cash award for their participation.

Structure of the Experiment

Each experiment involved three people and a mock electric shock generator. The three people were:

1. A bogus Experimenter (an actor in a gray lab coat posing as an experimental scientist to convey authority),
2. A Teacher (The process was rigged so that all 40 respondents ended up being teachers) and
3. A Learner (An associate of Dr. Milgram who pretended to be a second participant in the learning study).

The stated object of the Milgram experiment was to examine the relationship between learning and memory. Teachers and bogus Learners participated in pairs of two and drew straws to determine who would be the Teacher and who would be the Learner. Unknown to participants, however, the person responding to the newspaper ad was always made the Teacher.

Procedure of the Milgram Experiment

In the Teacher’s presence, the Experimenter strapped the Learner into a chair and attached electrodes to his arms. Teacher and Experimenter then went into an adjacent room where a mock electric shock generator was located. The device displayed a row of 30 switches, indicating that shocks ranged from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 volts (danger – severe shock). The Experimenter instructed the Teacher to administer an electric shock every time the Learner made a mistake. With each mistake, the Teacher was to increase the intensity of the shock.

Then the experiment began. The Teacher read the Learner a list of word pairs and asked him to correctly identify the word pair from a list of four choices. On purpose, the bogus Learner gave mainly wrong answers so that the Teacher had to deliver increasingly severe shocks. If the Teacher refused to administer additional shocks because the Learner appeared to be in pain, the Experimenter pressured him to continue because the experiment supposedly required him to do so.

Results of the Milgram Experiment

The studies took place only 16 years following World War II, and Milgram wondered if there might be a link between the cruel actions of ordinary German citizens during the Holocaust and their willingness to submit to authority. Results of Milgrim’s experiment showed that 65% of Teachers continued to give shocks all the way up to the highest voltage. He found that as long as the Teacher believed that the person giving the orders was qualified to do so and would accept full responsibility for the outcome, most Teachers would continue to increase shock levels even when the Learners begged them not to.

The Milgram experiment was designed to examine conditions under which ordinary citizens willingly submit to authority. www.walled-in-berlin.com

Milgram carried out 18 variations of this study by slightly altering the framework and found that obedience levels dropped slightly when Teachers observed others to disobey the orders. However, obedience levels increased when participants felt buffered from the consequences of their actions.

Implications of the Experiments

Are the Milgram experiments still relevant in today’s America? Are Americans as fiercely independent and autonomous as they think they are? Or do they submit to authority more often than they realize? These days, America is deeply divided politically. Do members of each camp decide using their own moral standard? Or do they feel pressured into supporting their party’s agenda and assume that their party leaders will take full responsibility?

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.