Replicating Milgram Would People Still Obey Today?

• Published in: The American psychologist Vol. 64; no. 1; pp. 1 - 11
• Main Author: Burger, Jerry M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Psychological Association 01.01.2009
• Subjects: Adult; Adults; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Beck Anxiety Inventory; Behavioral Research - ethics; Behavioral Research - methods; Behavioral Research - statistics & numerical data; Compliance (Psychology); Dominance-Subordination; Empathy; Ethnicity; Experiments; Female; Gender Differences; Humans; Individual Differences; Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis); Investigations; Male; Middle Aged; Personality; Punishment - psychology; Research Subjects - psychology; Responses; Sex Distribution; Social Behavior; Social Psychology; Well Being; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0003-066X
• DOI: 10.1037/a0010932

The author conducted a partial replication of Stanley Milgram's (1963, 1965, 1974) obedience studies that allowed for useful comparisons with the original investigations while protecting the well-being of participants. Seventy adults participated in a replication of Milgram's Experiment 5 up to the point at which they first heard the learner's verbal protest (150 volts). Because 79% of Milgram's participants who went past this point continued to the end of the shock generator's range, reasonable estimates could be made about what the present participants would have done if allowed to continue. Obedience rates in the 2006 replication were only slightly lower than those Milgram found 45 years earlier. Contrary to expectation, participants who saw a confederate refuse the experimenter's instructions obeyed as often as those who saw no model. Men and women did not differ in their rates of obedience, but there was some evidence that individual differences in empathic concern and desire for control affected participants' responses. (Contains 5 tables and 3 footnotes.)