Milgram's Obedience To Authority Experiments

Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority experiments remain one of the most
inspired contributions in the field of social psychology. Although Milgram undertook
more than 20 experimental variations, his most (in)famous result was the first official
trial run – the remote condition and its 65% completion rate. Drawing on many
unpublished documents from Milgram’s personal archive at Yale University, this article
traces the historical origins and early evolution of the obedience experiments. Part 1
presents the previous experiences that led to Milgram’s conception of his rudimentary
research idea and then details the role of his intuition in its refinement. Part 2 traces
the conversion of Milgram’s evolving idea into a reality, paying particular attention to
his application of the exploratory method of discovery during several pilot studies.
Both parts illuminate Milgram’s ad hoc introduction of various manipulative techniques
and subtle tension-resolving refinements. The procedural adjustments continued
until Milgram was confident that the first official experiment would produce a high
completion rate, a result contrary to expectations of people’s behaviour. Showing how
Milgram conceived of, then arrived at, this first official result is important because the
insights gained may help others to determine theoretically why so many participants
completed this experiment.