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Milgram's shock experiment (1961)

This experiment was conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram in order to portray obedience to authority. They measured the willingness of participants (men aged 20 to 50 from a diverse range of occupations with different levels of education) to obey the instructions from an authority figure to supply fake electric shocks that would gradually increase to fatal levels. Regardless of these instructions going against their personal conscience, 65% of the participants shocked all the way to 450 volts, fully obeying the instruction, even if they did so reluctantly. Additionally, all participants shocked to at least 300 volts.

In this experiment, the subjects did not have punishments or rewards if they chose to disobey or obey. All they might receive is disapproval or approval from the experimenter. Since this is the case they had no motives to sway them to perform the immoral orders or not. One of the most important factors of the experiment is the position of the authority figure relative to the subject (the shocker) along with the position of the learner (the one getting shocked). There is a reduction in conformity depending on if the authority figure or learner was in the same room as the subject. When the authority figure was in another room and only phoned to give their orders the obedience rate went down to 20.5%. When the learner was in the same room as the subject the obedience rate dropped to 40%.