The Milgram Experiment

The Milgram Experiment was first described by American social psychologist Stanley Milgram in 1963. Its purpose was to determine how much suffering people are willing to inflict on others—specifically, innocent people—when it is presented as part of their job responsibilities.

Participants were told that the study was about the effect of pain on memory. The experiment involved three roles: the experimenter, a real participant (the “teacher”), and an actor pretending to be another participant (the “learner”). The “learner” was tasked with memorizing words from a list, while the “teacher” tested their memory and, for every mistake, administered an electric shock, increasing the voltage with each error.

Originally, the Milgram Experiment was conducted to understand how ordinary Germans could participate in the mass extermination of people during the Nazi regime. Ultimately, the experiment vividly demonstrated the inability of individuals (in this case, the “teachers”) to resist authority figures (the researchers), who instructed them to continue their “work” even when it caused suffering to the “learner.”

The results revealed that the need to obey authority is deeply rooted in the human mind, even when it leads to internal conflict and moral distress. Milgram himself noted that under the pressure of authority, reasonable adults are capable of going to great lengths.

Lessons from the Milgram Experiment

If we reflect on the results, we see that the Milgram Experiment also highlights people’s inability to make independent decisions about their actions and behavior when someone of higher rank or status is present. Unfortunately, these aspects of human psychology often lead to tragic outcomes.

For society to be truly civilized, people must learn to always be guided by humane attitudes toward one another, as well as by ethical standards and moral principles dictated by their conscience—not merely by the authority and power of others.