A blast from the past series - The Obedience to Authority by the late Prof Stanley Milgram - Book Review*

ID: This picture is of the front cover of Stanley Milgram's book called Obedience to Authority. It shows two men sitting at a desk and one man is holding down the others arm and hand on a electric shock plate.

The human brain is a magnificent structure and essential element of human life. Within it - you have more connections between synapses than there is stars within the Milky Way Galaxy (Nova PBS, 2023). With all this power, agility, uniqueness and structure we have something makes me me and you you. You would think with our awe inspiring brains we as humans could create a world of peace, stability, richness and equality for all where medical and scientific marvels were the standard in world that worked in harmony with the planet and universe we inhabit. And we can do this but something stops us from achieving our potential. Instead we marvel at how many people we can wipes off of the face of the earth, the amount of wealth we have compare to others and its quest to take what is not ours, how quickly we can destroy and torture the planet and animal life even in the name of science!

Depressing isn't it. Sadly it can be but we have the potential to create the opposite at our very own fingertips.

If I asked you to inflict pain on another person would you do it? The majority of people would refuse. Many leading lights in the fields of psychiatry, psychology and medicine agreed that the majority of people would refuse to hurt anyone, especially to the point of danger or death. Professor Stanley Milgram was a senior professor at Yale University in America in the 1950 - 60's who was head of the department of psychology. He devised a number of experiments to test this idea. But why? Milgram was a child when the second world war broke out and his parents had to flee due to being of the Jewish faith. Sadly with the millions of people who were murdered by Hitler and the Nazis, a considerable amount of his relatives perished too. Thus he wanted to see why so many German's and its allies supported the Nazis. Milgram published a number of books including this one Obedience to Authority (1974/1997/2010/2013).

His experiments started to reveal something that really shocked him and the other assistant researchers - ordinary good people carried out the atrocious act of inflicting extreme pain on another human being just because a 'authority figure', in this case the experimenter, told them to. Luckily for the 'learner', the electric shocks were dud and not real as a significant amount of people, teachers, went all the way to using 450 volts of electric shock. The book highlights that he endeavoured to change the various experiments to try and make it easier for participants to break off and disobey authority. But no matter how the study was changed, high numbers of participants continued to obey and shock the learner. Because of the results of his study and what it meant for ordinary people, some scientists and journalists accused Milgram of interpreting his experiment to fit his narrative or purposely being unethical - both things which caused him much pain and the stress that this brought on killed him in the end with him suffering from one heart attack after another.

ID: This picture is a photograph taken by a scientist of the above experiment. It has 3 men in it and the one in the chair is being strapped in by the other two as part of the study.

Today, there are still a few psychologists who disapprove of this experiment claiming it broke ethical standards. In the 1960's there was no set ethical standard as we have today that all scientists have to adhere to (Code of Ethics and Conduct | BPS, 2021). Milgram was one of the first scientist to include what we call 'debriefing'. This is when after the experiment has finished, we discuss with the participant what they felt about what happened and their thoughts on it and if they feel they would like to speak to a psychologist or other mental health professional. He also ensured that all participants were adults from various economic, racial and professional backgrounds. He also used a group of 40 women something not usually done in those days. He made it clear that they could contact him at any time and he would be more than happy to chat, which he did. Also, there was no real electric shocks being administered. At that time, scientists did use participants for electric shocks, invasive medical procedures, testing chemicals and making children inflict pain on others etc. Milgram was no saint but he certainly was no devil. In my opinion, he was a scientific visionary.

This book gives over the real truth about his group of experiments from the man himself and other eminent scientists of the time, who we (scientific researchers) still consider to be leading lights in the scientific world. Milgram had carried out numerous other scientific studies including the effects of group pressure and why crowds of people carry out the things they do and how it emboldens its members. It is well worth reading this book Obedience to Authority whether you buy it (new or second hand) or borrow it from a library. It will help you to understand why we humans do carry out bad things on other humans and animals, shines a light on why wars and violent crime do happen or why we all break the law. Why not give it a read with an open mind and then tell me your opinion - good or bad. Thanks for spending the time to have a look at this post.

*This book review blog post reviews the paper back 2013 edition

Stanley Milgram - Obedience to Authority - An Experimental View (Foreword by Prof Phillip Zimbardo). ISBN: 978-1-905177-32-5. Published by Pinter and Martin - part of their psychology series. RRP UK £9.99. Printed and bound in the UK by MPG books. Available online and from book stores around the world. Published in 1974 Tavistock) & 1997, 2010 & 2013 (Pinter & Martin). 231 pages. Paper Back Edition.