What was the research question that the Milgram experiment a

What was the research question that the Milgram experiment attempted to answer? Describe what was done as part of the experiment.

Solution

Milgram experiment is a study on obedience to authority figures. The experiment measured the willingness of participants mostly young male students from Yale to obey the authority who instructed them to perform certain acts conflicting with their personal conscience. The experiment found that a very high proportion of the individuals were prepared to obey though unwillingly, even if it caused distress.

The experiment involved 3 participants.

Experimenter, the authoritative role

The subject a volunteer, willing to obey the authority

An actor pretending to be volunteer not known to the subject.

At the beginning the subject and the actor draw slips, both slip written as teacher but not known to the subject. The actor would always say, learner thus the subject will become a teacher, after that they are separated into two rooms where the teacher cannot see the learner but they could communicate.

The learner would let the teacher know that he had a heart problem. At the beginning of the experiment the teacher was given an electric shock to know what it feels like.

The teacher was given a set of word pairs which he has to teach to the learner. The teacher would begin by reading the list of word pairs to the learner and the then read the first word and four possible answers. The learner would press a button indicating the response. For each wrong answer the teacher would give an electric shock to the learner in increments of 15 volts. The learner would play prerecorded sounds to indicate that he received the shock in reality no shock is given but the teacher believes the leaner is subjected to real shock. After a number of shocks the learner would start banging to the wall and after several bangs stop responding indicating he has collapsed.

At this time many people indicated their desired to stop, he was prodded verbally by the experimenter

If the subject wants to stop after all the four prods, it is stopped otherwise it was halted when the shock level reached 450 volts.