Question

What was the purpose of milgram study?

Why did Milgram feel the study was necessary?

What question or hypothesis was Milgram attempting to answer?

Answer 1

Milgram experiment was a series of social psychology experiment conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram.

The purpose of Milgram study was to focus on conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. The purpose was to measure the willingness of participants ranging from men with diverse range of education and occupation to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience.

Milgram investigated this experiment to examine the justifications offered by those accused at world war II as their defense was often based on obedience that they were just following the orders of their authority. For this purpose, Milgram wanted to investigate whether Germans were being obedient in following the orders of their authority figures as it was the explanation for killing Nazi's in world war II.

The hypothesis that was investigated in Milgram's experiment was- " the degree of pain an individual is willing to inflict pain upon another individual just because it was ordered by the authority figure".