Book Reading #34: Obedience to Authority

Book Author: Stanley Milgram

Chapter 1:

In chapter 1, Milgram introduces the reader to why the issue of obedience is important to study. He gives a short description of his study, and compares his conclusions to those Hannah Arendt made about the Nazi Adolf Eichmann. His conclusion in that chapter is that a dilemma faces anyone who enters into an agreement to be part of a system. When the system requires them to do something with which they disagree, they must either be loyal to their moral standards or loyal to the system.

Chapter 2:



In chapter 2 Milgram gives an explanation of the set up done for his study. This includes describing how he obtained participants, posted flyers, determined location, procedure of the experiment, and how data, and user feedback were collected.  

Chapter 3:

In chapter 3,  Milgram asks many psychological professionals what they think a person would do in the study, and finds agreement that there would be little obedience.

Chapter 4:

In chapter 4, Milgram describes the basic series of experiments in which the closeness of the "victim" was manipulated.  In the first, the teacher would only get a pounding on the wall from the victim at 300 volts. In the second experiment,  vocal protests were used. In third, the victim was placed in the same room as the teacher.  And in the last, the victim only got shocked when he put his/her hand on a shock plate.

Chapter 5:

In chapter 5, Milgram gives us some detailed information about how particular people behaved in this stressful situation, and the reasons they gave for their behavior. This is months after the experiment.

Chapter 6::Chapter 7::Chapter 8:

Chapters 6 and 8 are additional variations on the study. Mligram changed some of his parameters like:

changing the location of the experiment, trying the experiment with other victims and experimenters, including using a contract, performing the study under a different name, letting a subject to choose the shock level, etc... .

Chapter 7 contains more interviews with subjects.  In particular, one of the subjects was from Germany, and at 210 volts she decided to stop. Milgram attributes this to her exposure to Nazi propaganda.