Question 1

What did the Milgram experiment prove?

Accepted Answer

It showed that roughly 65 percent of ordinary people would administer what they believed were dangerous electric shocks to a stranger simply because an authority figure calmly told them to continue. The finding suggested obedience to authority, not inner cruelty, drives many people to harmful acts.

Question 2

Why did people obey in the Milgram experiment?

Accepted Answer

Subjects entered what Milgram called an agentic state, seeing themselves as instruments of the experimenter rather than authors of their own actions. The lab coat, the Yale setting, and the experimenter's assurance of responsibility made stopping feel like disrupting a legitimate procedure rather than a moral choice.

Question 3

Has the Milgram experiment been replicated?

Accepted Answer

Yes. A 2009 partial replication by Jerry Burger, designed to meet modern ethics rules, found obedience rates close to Milgram's original results, and virtual-reality versions show similar patterns. The exact percentages vary, but the core phenomenon of obedience to authority persists.

ethics

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