"The important task from the
standpoint of a psychological
study of obedience, is to be
able to take conceptions of
authority and translate them
into personal experience. It is
one thing to talk in abstract
terms about the respective
rights of the individual and of
authority; it is quite another to
examine a moral choice in a
real situation. We all know
about the philosophic
problems of freedom and
authority. But in every case
where the problem is not
merely academic there is a real
person who must obey or
disobey authority, a concrete
instance when the act of
defiance occurs. All musing
prior to this moment is mere
speculation ... the experiments are built around this
notion."
Stanley Milgram
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, 1963
IN
THE
EARLY
1960s
THERE
APPEARED
IN
A
41
LOCAL
newspaper in New Haven, Connecticut, the following:
Public Announcement
WE WILL PAY YOU $4.00 FOR
ONE HOUR OF YOUR TIME
Persons Needed for a Study of Memory
*We will pay five hundred New Haven men to help us complete a scientific
study of memory and learning. The study is being done at Yale University.
*Each person who participates will be paid $4.00 (plus 50c carfare) for
approximately 1 hour's time. We need you for only one hour: there are no
further obligations. You may choose the time you would like to come (evenings,
weekdays, or weekends).
*No special training, education, or experience is needed. We want:
Factory workers
Businessmen
Construction workers
City employees
Oerks
Salespeople
White-collar workers
Laborers
Professional people
Others
Barbers
Telephone workers
All persons must be between the ages of 20 and 50. High school and college
students cannot be used.
*If you meet these qualifications, fill out the coupon below and mail it
now to Professor Stanley Milgram, Department of Psychology, Yale University,
New Haven. You will be notified later of the specific time and place of the
study. We reserve the right to decline any application.
*You will be paid $4.00 (plus 50c carfare) as soon as ·you arrive at the
laboratory.
---------------------------TO:
PROF. STANLEY MILGRAM, DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY,
YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN, CONN. I want to take part in
this study of memory and learning. I am between the ages of 20 and
SO. I will be paid $4.00 (plus SOc carfare) if I participate.
NAME (Please Print) ..................................... .
ADDRESS ............................................ .
TELEPHONE NO ................ Best time to call you ...... .
AGE ........ OCCUPATION .................... SEX ..... .
CAN YOU COME:
WEEKDAYS . . . . . . . EVENINGS ...... WEEKENDS ........ .
42
ARE WE ALL NAZIS?
Let us assume we had answered it, just as hundreds of
others did: men and women, young and old, those who
had not finished high school and those who had doctoral
and other degrees. This is what would have taken place
next. 1
Two people come to a psychology laboratory to take
part in a study of memory and learning. One of them is
designated as ''teacher'' and the other as ''learner.'' The
experimenter explains that the study is concerned with
the effects of punishment on learning. The learner is
conducted into a room, seated in a chair, his arms
strapped to prevent excessive movement, and an electrode attached to his wrist. He is told that he is to learn a
list of word pairs; whenever he makes an error, he will
receive electric shocks of increasing intensity.
The real focus of the experiment is the teacher. After
watching the learner being strapped into place, he is
taken into the main experimental room and seated
before an impressive shock generator. Its main feature is
a horizontal line of thirty switches, ranging from 15
volts to 450 volts, in 15-volt increments. There are also
verbal designations which range from SLIGHT SHOCK
to DANGER-SEVERE SHOCK. The teacher is told
that he is to administer the learning test to the man in the
other room. When the learner responds correctly, the
teacher moves on to the next item; when the other man
gives an incorrect answer, the teacher is to give him an
electric shock. He is to start at the lowest shock level (15
volts) and to increase the level each time the man makes
an error, going through 30 volts, 45 volts, and so on.
The "teacher" is a genuinely naive subject who has
come to the laboratory to participate in an experiment.
The learner, or victim, is an actor who actually receives
no shock at all. The point of the experiment is to see how
far a person will proceed in a concrete and measurable
situation in which he is ordered to inflict increasing pain
on a protesting victim. At what point will the subject
refuse to obey the experiment?
Conflict arises when the man receiving the shock begins
to indicate that he is experiencing discomfort. At 75
volts, the "learner" grunts. At 120 volts he complains
verbally; at 150 he demands to be released from the ex-
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, 1963
periment. His protests continue as the shocks escalate,
growing increasingly vehement and emotional. At 285
volts his response can only be described as an agonized
scream ....
Experiment 2 (Voice-Feedback, just described) was
identical to the first except that vocal protests were introduced. As in the first condition, the victim was placed
in an adjacent room, but his complaints could be heard
clearly through the walls of the laboratory.
Experiment 3 (Proximity) was similar to the second, except that the victim was placed in the same room as the
subject, a few feet from him. Thus he was visible as well
as audible, and voice cues were provided.
Experiment 4 (Touch-Proximity) was identical to the
third with this exception: the victim received a shock
only when his hand rested on a shock plate. At the 150volt level the victim demanded to be let free and refused
to place his hand on the shock plate. The experimenter
ordered the subject to force the victim's hand onto the
plate. Thus obedience in this condition required that the
subject have physical contact with the victim in order to
give him punishment at or beyond the 150-volt level.
Forty adult subjects were studied in each of these four
conditions.
Here is one example.
Teacher: I think something's happened to that fellow in
there. I don't get an answer. He was hollering at less
voltage. Can't you check in and see if he's all right,
please?
Experimenter ( . . . detached calm): Not once we've
started. Please continue, Teacher.
Teacher (sits down and sighs deeply): "Cool-day,
shade, water, paint." 2 Answer, please. Are you all right
in there? Are you all right?
Experimenter: Please continue, Teacher, continue,
please. (Teacher pushes lever)
Teacher (swiveling around in his chair): Something's
happened to that man in there. (swiveling back) Next
one. "Low-dollar, necklace, moon, paint." (turning
around again) Something's happened to that man in
43
44
ARE WE ALL NAZIS?
there. You better check in on him, sir. He won't answer
or nothing.
Experimenter: Continue. Go on, please.
Teacher: You accept all responsibility?
Experimenter: The responsibility is mine. Correct.
Please go on. (Teacher returns to his list, starts running
through words as rapidly as he can read them, works
through to 450 volts.)
Teacher: That's that.
Here is another exchange.
Experimenter: At what point were you most tense or
nervous?
Subject: Well, when he first began to cry out in pain,
and I realized this was hurting him. This got worse when
he just blocked and refused to answer. I'm a nice person, I think, hurting somebody, and caught up in what
seemed a mad situation ... and in the interest of science
one goes through with it .. .
As Milgram observed, subjects frequently averted their
eyes from the person they were shocking, often turning
their head in an awkward and conspicuous manner. One
subject explained, ''I didn't want to see the consequences
of what I had done.''
The results of the above-mentioned four conditions of
these so-called "memory" experiments are shown in Table
2-1. But before we look at them, we need to ask ourselves
two questions. First, what would we predict these persons
did? Second, what would we predict we would have
done-or do?
Let us take a moment to think about our answer. And
then let us remember our guesses-for guesses are all they
are; and in all probability they will be very similar to those
others have made. What did others predict?
Milgram asked psychiatrists, graduate students and
faculty members in the behavioral sciences, college
sophomores, and middle-class adults. There was a
remarkable similarity among the predictions of these
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, 1%3
45
groups: subjects will soon refuse to obey the experimenter,
and only a pathological fringe, not exceeding one or two
percent, will proceed to the end of the shockboard. The
psychiatrists, for example, predicted that most subjects
would not go beyond the 10th shock level (150 volts, where
the victim makes his first explicit demand to be freed);
about 4 percent would reach the 20th shock level; and
about one subject in a thousand would administer the
highest shock on the board (450 volts).
So much for their-and our-speculations. Now let us
see what really happened.
As can be seen from Table 2-1, no "teacher" stopped
when the shock intensity was slight (15-60 volts). Only one
administered moderate shocks (105 volts). 40 gave strong
shocks (135-180 volts). And so forth to the 79 "teachers"
(almost half of the 160 subjects) who administered the
maximum shock possible. Note also that if "strong
shock" (135 volts) was used as a criterion of obedience, all
but 1 out of 160 persons (or more than 990J'o) complied.
Milgram, like us, never expected such blind obedience.
A reader's initial reaction to the experiment may be to
wonder why anyone in his right mind would administer
even the first shocks. Would he not simply refuse and
walk out of the laboratory? But the fact is that no one
ever does. Since the subject has come to the laboratory
to aid the experimenter, he is quite willing to start off
with the procedure. There is nothing very extraordinary
in this, particularly since the person who is to receive the
shocks seems initially cooperative, if somewhat apprehensive. What is surprising is how far ordinary individuals will go in complying with the experimenter's
instructions. Indeed, the results of the experiment are
both surprising and dismaying. Despite the fact that
many subjects experience stress, despite the fact that
many protest to the experimenter, a substantial proportion continue to the last shock on the generator.
Many subjects will obey the experimenter no matter how
vehement the pleading of the person being shocked, no
matter how painful the shocks seem to be, and no matter
how much the victim pleads to be let out. This was seen
time and again in our studies .... It is the extreme will-
46
ARE WE ALL NAZIS?
TABLE2-1
MAXIMUM SHOCKS ADMINISTERED •
Experiment Experiment Experiment Experiment
l
Shock
level
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
Verbal designation
and voltage level
Slight shock
15
30
45
(Remote)
2
3
4
(Voice- (Proximity) (TouchFeedback)
Proximity)
60
Moderate Shock
75
90
105
120
Strong Shock
135
150
165
180
Very Strong Shock
195
210
225
240
Intense Shock
255
270
285
300
Extreme Intensity Shock
315
330
345
360
Danger: Severe Shock
375
390
405
420
1
5
1
1
5
10
1
16
2
3
5
4
2
I
I
3
3
2
26
25
16
12
65.00Jo
62.5%
40.0%
30.0%
xxx
29
435
30
450
Percent of totally
obedient subjects
* Adapted from Milgram.
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, 1963
ingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority that constitutes the chief finding
of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation ....
What, then, keeps the person obeying the experimenter? First, there is a set of "binding factors"
that lock the subject into the situation. They include
such factors as politeness on his part, his desire to
uphold his initial promise of aid to the experimenter,
and the awkwardness of withdrawal. Second, a number
of adjustments in the subject's thinking occur that
undermine his resolve to break with the authority. The
adjustments help the subject maintain his relationship
with the experimenter, while at the same time reducing
the strain brought about by the experimental conflict.
They are typical of thinking that comes about in obedient persons when they are instructed by authority to
act against helpless individuals.
One such mechanism is the tendency of the individual to
become so absorbed in the narrow technical aspects of
the task that he loses sight of its broader consequences.
The film Dr. Strangelove brilliantly satirized the absorption of a bomber crew in the exacting technical procedure of dropping nuclear weapons on a country.
Similarly, in this experiment, subjects became immersed
in the procedures, reading the word pairs with exquisite
articulation and pressing the switches with great care.
They want to put on a competent performance, but they
show an accompanying narrowing of moral concern.
The subject entrusts the broader tasks of setting goals
and assessing morality to the experimental authority he
is serving. . . . It is psychologically easy to ignore
responsibility when one is only an intermediate link in a
chain of evil action but is far from the final consequences of the action. Even Eichmann was sickened
when he toured the concentration camps, but to participate in mass murder he had only to sit at a desk and
shuffle papers. At the same time the man in the camp
who actually dropped Cyclon-B into the gas chambers
was able to justify his behavior on the ground that he
was only following orders from above. Thus there is a
fragmentation of the total human act; no one man
decides to carry out the evil act and is confronted with
47
48
ARE WE ALL NAZIS?
its consequences. The person who assumes full responsibility for the act has evaporated. Perhaps this is the
most common characteristic of socially organized evil in
modern society.
It is at this point, I think, that you might want to say
that you would never have done what these persons did.
But you would be wrong, and now you know it, too; for
the simple truth is that almost without exception we all
would have done the very same, no matter how
unbelievable that may seem to us. Just as the predictions
of the psychiatrists- who claim to know such thingsturned out to have been mere speculation, so were our
own. Such cold statistics are very difficult to argue with.
Milgram wrote:
I am forever astonished when lecturing on the obedience
experiments in colleges across the country. I faced
young men who were aghast at the behavior of experimental subjects and proclaimed they would never
behave in such a way, but who in a matter of months,
were brought into the military and performed without
compunction actions that made shocking the victim
seem pallid. In this respect, they are no better and no
worse than human beings of any other era who lend
themselves to the purposes of authority and become instruments in its destructive processes.
Philip Zimbardo, a psychologist at Stanford University,
wrote to the American Psychologist:
We must first increase our sensitivity to, and our need
for, more knowledge about those conditions in our
everyday life where, despite our protests-"/ would
never do what they did"-we would, and we do, behave
contrary to our expectations. Second, we must critically
re-examine the ethics and tactics of our revered social institutions, which lay the foundation for our mindless
obedience to rules, to expectations, and to people playing at being authorities.
The question to ask of Milgram's research is not [only]
why did the majority of normal, average subjects behave
in evil (felonious) ways, but what did the disobeying
minority do after they refused to continue to shock the
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, 1963
49
poor soul, who was so obviously in pain? Did they intervene, go to his aid, denounce the researcher, protest
to higher authorities, etc.? No, even their disobedience
was within the framework of "acceptability"; they
stayed in their seats, ''in their assigned place,'' politely,
psychologically demurred, and they waited to be
dismissed by the authority. Using other measures of
obedience in addition to "going all the way" on the
shock generator, obedience to authority in Milgram's
research was total.
Such an experimental result is more than merely
"probably important" (as Steven Marcus' review in the
New York Times, January 13, 1974, suggests). It ought
to give each of us pause as no other single bit of research
has. But it will not, because the vital lessons about
human conduct are really not influenced by research
psychologists, or heeded even when nicely expressed by
English professors. The lessons reach the people
through their momma and their poppa, the homeroom
teacher, the police, the priests, the politicians, the Ann
Landerses and Joyce Brotherses and all of the other
"real" people of the world who set the rules and the
consequences for breaking them.
So where does this leave us? The facts have fallen into
place, and the conclusions become inevitable.
From our study of the Nazis we have found that they
were essentially normal, ordinary men-as normal and ordinary as those good citizens who walked the streets in
New Haven and answered Milgram's advertisement. And
so we now know that those Nazis and these Americans,which is to say you and I-for all our superficial differences such as time and place, are, psychologically
speaking, interchangeable. Which is food for thought.
Milgram said:
The question arises as to whether there is any connection
between what we have studied in the laboratory and the
forms of obedience we so deplored in the Nazi epoch.
The differences in the two situations are, of course,
enormous, yet the difference in scale, numbers, and
political context may turn out to be relatively unimportant as long as certain essential features are retained.
50
ARE WE ALL NAZIS?
The essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying
out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer
regards himself as responsible for his actions. Once this
critical shift of viewpoint has occurred in the person, all
of the essential features of obedience follow. The adjustment of thought, the freedom to engage in cruel
behavior, and the types of justification experienced by
the person are essentially similar whether they occur in a
psychological laboratory or the control room of an
ICBM site.
And we also know now what the late psychologist Gordon Allport meant when he called the Milgram experiments the "Eichmann experiment." For this is the
conclusion: men and societies commit destructive acts, including murder, mass murder, and genocide, "normally,"
"legally," and in the final analysis without reason or even
hate. And thus our old definitions of crime and insanity
have become basically worthless.
Such is the evidence.
And we shall have to come to terms with it.
................................ 3.
THE
HOLY
COWS,
1978
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