Stanley Milgram’s experiments on “Obedience to Authority” are among the most criticized in all of psychology. However, over the past 20 years, there has been a gradual rehabilitation of Milgram’s work and reputation, a reconsideration that is in turn closely linked to a contemporary “revival” of his Obedience experiments. This paper provides a critical counterpoint to this “Milgram revival” by drawing on archival material from participants in the Obedience study and Milgram himself. This material indicates that Milgram misrepresented (a) the extent of his debriefing procedures, (b) the risk posed by the experiment, and (c) the harm done to his participants. The archival record also indicates that Milgram had doubts about the scientific value of the experiment, thereby compromising his principal ethical justification for employing such extreme methods. The article ends with a consideration of the implications of these historical revelations for contemporary efforts to revive the Milgram paradigm.
AbseD. (1973). The dogs of Pavlov. London, UK: Vallentine Mitchell.
2.
American Psychological Association. (1959). Ethical standards of psychologists. American Psychologist, 14, 279–282.
3.
BaronR.ByrneD.BranscombeN.FritzleyH. (2011). Mastering social psychology. Toronto, Canada: Pearson.
4.
BaumrindD. (1964). Some thoughts on ethics of research: After reading Milgram’s “behavioral study of obedience”. American Psychologist, 19, 421–423.
5.
BaumrindD. (1985). Research using intentional deception. American Psychologist, 40, 165–174.
6.
BellakG. (Producer), DubinC. S. (Director). (1975). The tenth level [Motion picture]. United States: Paramount Pictures.
7.
BenjaminL.SimpsonJ. (2009). The power of the situation: The impact of Milgram’s obedience studies on personality and social psychology. American Psychologist, 64, 12–19.
8.
BlassT. (2000). The Milgram paradigm after 35 years: Some things we now know about obedience to authority. In BlassT. (Ed.), Obedience to authority: Current perspectives on the Milgram paradigm (pp. 35–59). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
9.
BlassT. (2004). The man who shocked the world: The life and legacy of Stanley Milgram. New York, NY: Basic Books.
10.
BlassT. (2009). From New Haven to Santa Clara: A historical perspective on the Milgram obedience experiments. American Psychologist, 64, 37–45.
11.
BranniganA. (1997). The postmodern experiment: Science and ontology in experimental social psychology. British Journal of Sociology, 48, 594–610.
BurgerJ. (2002). Four decades and counting [Review of the book Obedience to authority: Current perspectives on the Milgram paradigm by BlassT. (Ed.)]. Contemporary Psychology, 47, 665–667.
14.
BurgerJ. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today?American Psychologist, 64(1), 1–11.
DarleyJ. (1992). Social organization for the production of evil. Psychological Inquiry, 3, 199–218.
17.
ElmsA. (1982). Keeping deception honest: Justifying conditions for social scientific research stratagems. In BeauchampT.FadenR.WallaceR. J.WaltersL. (Eds.), Ethical issues in social science research (pp. 232–245). Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.
18.
ElmsA. (1995). Obedience in retrospect. Journal of Social Issues, 51, 21–31.
19.
ElmsA. (2009). Obedience lite. American Psychologist, 64, 32–36.
20.
ErreraP. (1963a, March14). Defiant subjects. [Meeting conducted by Dr. Paul Errera]. Stanley Milgram Papers (Sanitized Data, Box 155A). Yale University Archives, New Haven, CT.
21.
ErreraP. (1963b, April11). Defiant subjects. [Meeting conducted by Dr. Paul Errera]. Stanley Milgram Papers (Sanitized Data, Box 155A). Yale University Archives, New Haven, CT.
22.
ErreraP. (1963c, March21). Obedient subjects. [Meeting conducted by Dr. Paul Errera]. Stanley Milgram Papers (Sanitized Data, Box 155A). Yale University Archives, New Haven, CT.
23.
ErreraP. (1963d, April4). Obedient subjects. [Meeting conducted by Dr. Paul Errera]. Stanley Milgram Papers (Sanitized Data, Box 155A)Yale University Archives, New Haven, CT.
24.
EvansR. (1980). The making of social psychology. New York, NY: Gardner Press.
25.
FenigsteinA. (1998). Were obedience pressures a factor in the Holocaust?Analyse & Kritik, 20, 54–73.
GilovichT.KeltnerD.NisbetR. (2006). Social psychology. New York, NY: Norton.
29.
GoldhagenD. (1996). Hitler’s willing executioners. New York, NY: Knopf.
30.
HarrisB. (1988). Key words: A history of debriefing in social psychology. In MorawskiJ. (Ed.), The rise of experimentation in American psychology (pp. 188–212). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
31.
HelmC.MorelliM. (1985). Obedience to authority in a laboratory setting: Generalizability and context dependency. Political Studies, 33, 610–627.
JohnsonG. (1943). American heroes and hero worship. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers.
35.
LemovR. M. (2005). World as laboratory: Experiments with mice, mazes, and men (1st ed.). New York, NY: Hill and Wang.
36.
MandelD. (1998). The obedience alibi: Milgram’s account of the Holocaust reconsidered. Analyse & Kritik, 20, 74–94.
37.
MilgramS. (1959). Note to self. Stanley Milgram Papers (Series 1, Box 23, Folder 383). Yale University Archives, New Haven, CT.
38.
MilgramS. (1962a). Evaluation of obedience research: Science or art?Unpublished manuscript, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
39.
MilgramS. (1962b, August). Note to self. Stanley Milgram Papers (Series II, Box 46, Folder 173). Yale University Archives, New Haven, CT.
40.
MilgramS. (1963a). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal & Social Psychology, 67, 371–378.
41.
MilgramS. (1963b, April17). Letter to Dorwin Cartwright. Stanley Milgram Papers (Series 1, Box 1a, Folder 7). Yale University Archives, New Haven, CT.
42.
MilgramS. (1963c, September27). Letter to Joan Daves. Stanley Milgram Papers (Series 1, Box 1a, Folder 9). Yale University Archives, New Haven, CT.
43.
MilgramS. (1964). Issues in the study of obedience: A reply to Baumrind. American Psychologist, 19, 848–852.
44.
MilgramS. (1965). Some conditions of obedience and disobedience to authority. Human Relations, 18, 57–76.
45.
MilgramS. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. London, UK: Tavistock.
46.
MilgramS. (n.d.). An experimenter’s dilemma. Stanley Milgram Papers (Series II, Box 46 Folder #173). Yale University Archives, New Haven, CT.
47.
MillerA. G. (1986). The obedience experiments: A case study of controversy in social science. New York, NY: Praeger.
48.
MillerA. (2004). What can the Milgram obedience experiments tell us about the Holocaust? In MillerA. (Ed.), Social psychology of good and evil (pp. 193–239). New York, NY: Guilford.
49.
MillerA. (2009). Reflections on “Replicating Milgram” (Burger, 2009) [Peer commentary on the paper “Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today?” by J. M. Burger]. American Psychologist, 64, 20–27.
50.
MillerA.CollinsB.BriefD. (1995). Perspectives on Obedience to Authority: The legacy of the Milgram experiments. Journal of Social Issues, 51, 1–19.
51.
MixonD. (1972). Instead of deception. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 2, 145–174.
52.
MyersD.SmithS. (2009). Exploring social psychology. Toronto, Canada: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.
53.
NavarickD. (2009). Reviving the Milgram obedience paradigm in the era of informed consent. The Psychological Record, 59, 155–170.
54.
NicholsonI. (2011). “Shocking” masculinity: Stanley Milgram, “Obedience to Authority,” and the crisis of manhood in Cold War America. ISIS, 102, 238–268.
55.
PancerS. M. (1997). Social psychology: The crisis continues. In FoxD.PrilleltenskyI. (Eds.), Critical psychology (pp. 150–165). London, UK: Sage.
56.
PattenS. (1977a). The case that Milgram makes. Philosophical Review, 86, 350–364.
PerryG. (2008, October11). Beyond the shock machine [Radio broadcast]. Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
59.
PettigrewT. (2005). [Review of the book The Man Who Shocked the World, by T. Blass]. Social Forces, 83, 1778–1779.
60.
Reaction of subjects. (1962). Stanley Milgram Papers (Series II, Box #44). Yale University Archives, New Haven, CT.
61.
RussellN. (2010). Milgram’s obedience to authority experiments: Origins and early evolution. British Journal of Social Psychology, 49, 1–23.
62.
SamelsonF. (1974). History, origin myth and ideology: “Discovery” of social psychology. Journal of the Theory of Social Behavior, 4(2), 218–231.
63.
SchullerH. (1982). Ethical problems in psychological research. New York, NY: Academic Press.
64.
SheppardJ.YoungM. (2007). The routes of moral development and the impact of exposure to the Milgram obedience study. Journal of Business Ethics, 75, 315–333.
65.
SilvermanI. (1977). Why social psychology fails. Canadian Psychological Review, 18, 353–358.
66.
SmithM. B. (1972). Is experimental social psychology advancing?Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 8, 86–96.
67.
StamH.LubekI.RadtkeH. L. (1998). Repopulating social psychology texts: Disembodied “subjects” and embodied subjectivity. In BayerB.ShotterJ. (Eds.), Reconstructing the psychological subject: Bodies, practices and technologies (pp. 153–186). London, UK: Sage.
68.
Subjects’ conversation. (1963, February28). Stanley Milgram Papers (Series II, Box #44). Yale University Archives, New Haven, CT.
69.
TakooshianH. (2000). How Stanley Milgram taught about obedience and social influence. In BlassT. (Ed.), Obedience to authority: Current perspectives on the Milgram paradigm (pp. 9–24). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
70.
TavrisC. (1974). The frozen world of the familiar stranger: An interview with Stanley Milgram. Psychology Today, 8, 71–73, 76–78, 80.
71.
WilsonT.DePauloB.MookD.KlaarenK. (1993). Scientists’ evaluations of research: The biasing effects of the importance of the topic. Psychological Science, 4, 322–325.
72.
ZimbardoP. G. (2007). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil (1st ed.). New York, NY: Random House.
