Milgram

Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist known for his obedience to authority experiments and the small-world study. In the obedience studies conducted at Yale beginning in 1961, participants acted as teachers who believed they were delivering electric shocks to a learner for incorrect answers. Under the instruction of an experimenter in a lab coat, many continued to administer increasingly severe shocks, despite the learner’s protests. In the original setup about 65 percent of participants delivered the maximum 450-volt shock. Milgram interpreted these results as evidence that ordinary people can comply with harmful orders when instructed by an authority figure, a process he described in part through the concept of the agentic state, where individuals regard themselves as agents acting on behalf of others.

Variations of the experiment explored factors that influenced obedience, such as the proximity of the learner, the location of the study, and the presence or absence of other participants who refused to continue. These studies demonstrated that obedience can be affected by situational variables, though they also attracted methodological and ethical scrutiny.

In 1967 Milgram conducted the small-world experiment to study social networks and the connectedness of people. The project led to the popular notion of six degrees of separation, showing that individuals can be linked through relatively short chains of acquaintances.

Ethical considerations surrounding Milgram’s experiments emphasized deception and psychological distress to participants, contributing to reforms in research ethics, including informed consent practices and the establishment of institutional review boards. Milgram’s work has had a lasting impact on psychology, sociology, and ethics, shaping discussions about authority, responsibility, and the conditions under which people may follow orders.