Question

Chapter 3: Milgram: How might you account for the discrepancy between the subjects' actual performance versus the predicted performance throughout the entire series of experiments?

Answer 1

Stanley Milgram conducted his research on the concept of obedience to someone in authority during the time of the Nazi War. When the results of his experimental research confirmed that more than 65% of individuals succumbed to obeying another person in authority, it became a general notion that 'people are likely to do what they were told to do by a person in a position of authority'.

In Milgram's study, there was no harm administered on anybody involved in the experiment. It was only a false alarm given to the 'teacher' by the 'learner' in his experiment. The subjects' predicted performance throughout the series of experiment included that the subject would conform to authority without questioning. However, some participants' actual performance varied.  The participants' in the experiment, pleaded to stop and quoted they no longer want to administer shocks on the learner. However, they were still asked to do so. The predicted behaviour was thought to be obedience. However, there was resistance from the participant. The experimenter should have stopped right there, but the experiment was about observing the effect of obedience in individuals to a higher authority and thus, the predicted behaviour of the study was enforced onto the participants.