Meta-Milgram: An Empirical Synthesis of the Obedience Experiments

Nick Haslam, Steve Loughnan and Gina Perry

PLOS ONE, 2014, vol. 9, issue 4, 1-9

Abstract: Milgram's famous experiment contained 23 small-sample conditions that elicited striking variations in obedient responding. A synthesis of these diverse conditions could clarify the factors that influence obedience in the Milgram paradigm. We assembled data from the 21 conditions (N = 740) in which obedience involved progression to maximum voltage (overall rate 43.6%) and coded these conditions on 14 properties pertaining to the learner, the teacher, the experimenter, the learner-teacher relation, the experimenter-teacher relation, and the experimental setting. Logistic regression analysis indicated that eight factors influenced the likelihood that teachers continued to the 450 volt shock: the experimenter's directiveness, legitimacy, and consistency; group pressure on the teacher to disobey; the indirectness, proximity, and intimacy of the relation between teacher and learner; and the distance between the teacher and the experimenter. Implications are discussed.

Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0093927

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0093927

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