How and why Milgram’s research on obedience is relevant to our understanding of the conduct of soldiers in times of war.

The report aims to:

• Summarise the main points of Milgram’s experiment.

• Summarise the results and what they mean.

• Highlight why Milgram’s research is relevant to our understanding of the conduct of soldiers in times of war.

Background:

The aim of Milgram’s (1963) study was to investigate what levels of obedience would be shown when participants were told by a figure of authority to deliver electric shocks to another person. Milgram was interested in how easily ordinary people could be influenced into committing atrocities such as some of the acts carried out by Germans in WWII. The participant took the role of ‘teacher’, also present was the ‘learner’ who was in on the deception and knew that they would not receive any real shocks and the experimenter. The ‘teacher’ was told that the ‘learner’, who was in another room, would have words to memorise and if they got the words wrong they would receive an electric shock that was administered by the ‘teacher’. The shock generator in front of the ‘teacher’ ran from 15 volts to 450 volts with descriptive words such as ‘slight shock’ for 15 volts, ‘intense shock’ for 225 volts and ‘XXX’ for 435 volts (Banyard, 2010, p. 69). As the ‘learner’ began to get words wrong the ‘teacher’ began to shock, as the shocks increased the ‘learner’ began to shout out in pain. At these points when the ‘teacher’ showed discomfort in continuing, the experimenter who was sat in the same room as the ‘teacher’ told the them, ‘It is absolutely essential that you continue’ or ‘You have no choice, you must carry on’(Banyard, 2010, p. 73).

Results and variations:

Prior to his experiment Milgram conducted a survey and found that most respondents believed that the participants were not