submission to obedience
The experiment would end when all of the 4 types of promptings had been used, or when the teacher would have administered 4 times the highest possible discharge.
What are the two situations that can lead to the end of the experiment ?
The scientists believed that only a small portion of participants would administer electric chocs to innocent people.
What were the results estimated by the scientists ?
There was the experimenter, the teacher and the student.
What are the three types of participants ?
This experiment took place at Yale university.
Where did the experiment take place ?
Milgram wanted to understand how people could commit such atrocities during World War II.
What was Milgram’s motivation behind this experiment ?
The experiment was later criticized for being unethical.
How was this experiment perceived by the public opinion ?
The teacher was supposed to administer the student an electric choc.
What was the teacher supposed to do in case of a bad answer ?
Between 15 and 450 volts.
What was the range of possible electric chocs ?
The student protested, hit the wall, screamed in pain and eventually would stay silent.
What were the alleged reactions of the student when he answered wrongly ?
By replicating the experiment, scientists found similar results.
What are the conclusions drawn by the scientists that executed a second time the experiment ?
The experimenter and the teacher were in the same room, whereas the student was in an adjacent room separated by a wall.
What was the arrangement of the room ?
All participants could only pick the teacher.
What was the subterfuge used during the assignment of the roles ?
During the experiment the volunteers showed signs of extreme tensions such as sweating, trembling and uncontrollable laughing fits.
What were the different emotional stages that the teacher went through ?
Milgram lied about the purpose of the experiment, and he psychologically damaged some of the participants.
In which ways was the experiment unethical ?
The experimenter would say sentences like : "Please continue.", or "It is absolutely essential that you continue."
How did the experimenter encourage the teacher to keep going ?
The experiment was depicted as a study on memory and learning.
What was the "false" study displayed to the participants ?
Here, the submission to authority demonstrated that people could commit cruel acts to innocent people even though they wouldn’t have normally done so.
To what extent does this experiment illustrate the strong influence of obedience ?
Milgram tried to expose that people are puppets, controlled by society and that the only power in their hands is their perception and awareness.
What was the thought exposed by Milgram at the end of the experiment ?
Before starting the experiment, the experimenter administered the teacher an electric discharge of 45 volts.
How did the scientists demonstrate to the participant that the discharges were real ?
100 % of participants gave 300 volts and 65% of them gave 450 volts.
What was the percentage of participants that administered three hundred volts ? And of the participants that went to the highest discharge possible ?