Summary: Milgram’s Shock Experiment centered around the theory of Conformity; Conformity is a widely discussed topic in social psychology and is the act of complying with laws or social standards. It is often studied for its negative implications in connection with authority.

Implications: In this study, Milgram had 40 male participants quiz a “second participant” on a series of previously memorized word pairs. The second participant was a “confederate,” or individual who worked with the experimenters without the knowledge of the participant. The confederate was supposedly hooked up to a shock machine, and the participants were instructed to shock the confederate, in increasing voltage levels, everytime they responded with the wrong word pair. Participants were shown to keep going up on the voltage scale—up to even the supposed lethal “XXX” amount—despite the confederate asking to stop. An “experimenter” was also in the room with the participants as they were administering shocks, and if the participant asked to stop the experiment themselves, the experimenter would remark that they must continue on with the study.

Limitations: Milgram’s Shock Experiment was heavily criticized for its unethical practices, including deception and coercion. Since then, the study has been frequently repeated, and with new guidelines to protect participants, the original results have rarely been replicated; moreover, the sample size and sex was extremely limited. Ultimately, conforming to authority does not make an individual free of guilt; free will must always be acknowledged.

TAKE A LISTEN:

Sources

Hopper, Elizabeth. “The Milgram Experiment: How Far Will You Go to Obey an Order?” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 17 Dec. 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/milgram-experiment-4176401.

Mcleod, Saul. “The Milgram Shock Experiment.” Milgram Experiment | Simply Psychology, 2017, https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html.