PSYC 3402 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Stanley Milgram

• School: Northeastern University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3402
• Professor: Derek M.Isaacowitz

Document Summary

Obedience: some basic system of authority is required of all communal living. It has been established that from 1933-1945, millions of people were systematically slaughtered on command. Obedience is the psychological mechanism that links this individual action to political purpose. The study: 40 male participants" ages 20 through 50 were ordered to administer increasingly intense electric shock punishments to a student/victim in the context of a learning experiment. Each time the student got an answer wrong, the participant was told to administer a shock but in reality there were no actual shocks. Participants were given four commands by the experimenter, advising them to continue on. You have no other choice, you must go on. To milgram"s surprise, 26 participants obeyed the experimental commands fully and administered the highest shock level, labeled severe shock to their victims whereas 14 participants stopped generating shocks at some point throughout the experiment.