Milgram's obedience experiments

Online lecture series for secondary schools.

In this lecture, we introduce the obedience experiments conducted by the researcher Stanley Milgram in the 1960s, focusing in particular on: (i) a general definition of obedience as a ‘form of social influence elicited in response to direct orders or commands’; (ii) Milgram’s experiments considered as an attempt to measure the levels of obedience shown by people in particular situations; (iii) how the study was set up, including the specific roles of experimenter, participant and confederate; (iv) the experimental procedure in which participants were ordered to administer electric shocks to others; (v) some key findings from Milgram’s classic study and what they can tell us about the ways in which people do or do not obey authority.