Browse Definitions :
Definition

Milgram experiment (Behavioral Study on obedience)

The Milgram experiment is a famous psychological study exploring the willingness of individuals to follow the orders of authorities when those orders conflict with the individual’s own moral judgment. Psychologist Stanley Milgram began the obedience study at Yale in 1961, shortly after the start of the trial of Nazi war criminal Albert Eichmann. Milgram’s research was documented as “Behavioral Study on obedience” in 1963 in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology.

Although the researcher’s name will always be associated with the obedience study, Milgram is also known for research with less troubling implications, the small-world experiment. In 1967, the psychologist developed a model of distribution to demonstrate the six degrees of separation phenomenon, according to which any person on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of no more than five intermediaries.

The study 

Milgram said he developed his research to answer the question: "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders?" In the experiment, subjects thought that they were administering electrical shocks to “learners” who failed to respond correctly. In reality, the learners were actually part of the research team.

The experiment's subjects were told they would be operating  a shock generator with gradations ranging from Slight Shock to Danger: Severe Shock. Despite the "learners" who acted as if they were experiencing clear signs of discomfort and distress, the majority of subjects continued to follow instructions to deliver shocks -- even the maximum shock, which could be fatal.

More recent examinations of Milgram’s research by Gina Perry indicate that only about half of the participants were fully convinced that they were delivering shocks and that 66 percent of those participants refused to comply. Nevertheless, even that level of compliance has troubling implications for human behavior under unethical authority.

Applications of the Milgram experiment in business

In business, implications of the study have relevance for a number of areas including human resource management. For example, candidates for positions of authority should be taught counter-measures to blind obedience. Such counter-measures include the encouragement of critical thinking supported by a degree of autonomy among employees.

The Milgram experiment is also relevant to software development and AI ethics. In the case of the latter, AI might, for example, be programmed with a code of conduct and with weighted priorities that would supersede any conflicting instructions.

This was last updated in July 2019

Continue Reading About Milgram experiment (Behavioral Study on obedience)

Networking
  • CSU/DSU (Channel Service Unit/Data Service Unit)

    A CSU/DSU (Channel Service Unit/Data Service Unit) is a hardware device about the size of a modem. It converts a digital data ...

  • data streaming

    Data streaming is the continuous transfer of data from one or more sources at a steady, high speed for processing into specific ...

  • secure access service edge (SASE)

    Secure access service edge, also known as SASE and pronounced sassy, is a cloud architecture model that bundles network and ...

Security
  • application blacklisting (application blocklisting)

    Application blacklisting --increasingly called application blocklisting -- is a network or computer administration practice used ...

  • juice jacking

    Juice jacking is a security exploit in which an infected USB charging station is used to compromise devices that connect to it.

  • hypervisor security

    Hypervisor security is the process of ensuring the hypervisor -- the software that enables virtualization -- is secure throughout...

CIO
HRSoftware
  • recruitment process outsourcing (RPO)

    Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is when an employer turns the responsibility of finding potential job candidates over to a ...

  • human resources (HR) generalist

    A human resources generalist is an HR professional who handles the daily responsibilities of talent management, employee ...

  • employee lifecycle

    The employee lifecycle is a human resources model that identifies the different stages a worker advances through in an ...

Customer Experience
  • Adobe Experience Platform

    Adobe Experience Platform is a suite of customer experience management (CXM) solutions from Adobe.

  • virtual assistant (AI assistant)

    A virtual assistant, also called an AI assistant or digital assistant, is an application program that understands natural ...

  • inbound marketing

    Inbound marketing is a strategy that focuses on attracting customers, or leads, via company-created internet content, thereby ...

Close