Talk:Milgram experiment

Should we remove the quote from Peters and Waterman?

Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr wrote in 1981 that The Milgram Experiment and the later Zimbardo Experiment at Stanford University were frightening in their implications about the danger which lurks in the darker side of human nature.

This appears to be a quote from one of these "self-improvement"-type of management books, written by Peters and Waterman. I'm not quite sure why it's slapped in the middle here. I'd say let's remove it, as it's quite irrelevant, but if we want to keep it it should probably go at the bottom with the rest of the 2in popular culture" stuff (which needs trimming a bit anyway) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.132.210.79 (talk) 16:25, 20 July 2007

Debunking

Shouldn’t the debunking of the experiment, mentioned in paragraph two of the ‘criticisms’ be inclided in the introduction? The impression is given by the first feew paragraphs that this is still valid 90.251.53.81 (talk) 18:55, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

That would be giving too much prominence to the views of one psychologist over the prevailing view of many psychologists. As two critics of Gina Perry's book pointed out, that other scientists replicated Milgram's experiment and mostly achieved similar results. Replication is an important part of the scientific method. Anywikiuser (talk) 08:58, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

The main aspect of these "laboratory conditions" (not only Milgram, basically every simulated situation) is that they simply can't be compared with real life: All participants would have assumed that a) a prestigious institution like Yale would not conduct an experiment in which people get seriously hurt or possibly killed. b) the experimenters would be competent enough to know if the victim could be in danger (and then of course stop the experiment). and c) the experimenters (i.e. Yale University) would take full responsibility for the possible effects on the subjects. Neither of these assumptions would apply to a random situation in a public place, a factory etc. A "scientist" in an academic setting telling a volunteer to press buttons in an experiment about memory and learning methods is first of all not an authority figure, but a trustworthy expert. This behaviour can not at all be used to explain concentation camps, the Vietnam War, the torturing of prisoners in Falludscha or Guantanamo, the massacre at Butschra etc. These atrocities happened as the result of believing to be the "good guys", dehumanizing the victims and fear for their own security. Milgram's victims, at least those who believed the experiment to be real (the acting was very bad!), partcipated because they trusted the "experimenter". The real issue is Milgram's interpretation (and presentation) of the data. A scientist may start with a hypothesis, but he must always try to analyze the results without a bias. But Milgram wanted to prove his hypothesis -- Everybody can be turned into a torturer if given orders by an authority figure -- and he ignored all possible other explanations. He even went so far as to remove contradicting evidence and to disregard the victims' own explanations as self-defence-mechanisms (typical thinking pattern of psychologists at the time). (By the way, a biologist told me that although the human olfactory sense is very limited, pepole do literally smell if other persons are in mortal danger or are fearing for their life, because the composition of sweat changes -- the German word for cold sweat is "Angstschweiß".)--46.183.103.8 (talk) 10:26, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

This page is for suggesting improvements to the article Milgram experiment, see WP:TALK. What you are saying cannot be used for that because it is just your own thoughts, see WP:OR and WP:RS. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:24, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Also, do not delete other people's contributions. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:45, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Well, they couldn’t have replicated Milgram’s findings because the original version of the experiment is considered very unethical today. The ‘debunking’ here isn’t about the ethical-enough-to-be-replicable part, it’s about the unethical part where it was ‘proven’ that people would shock others to death if somebody with a lab coat said so. The experiment wouldn’t be talked about today if it stopped at 150V like many ‘replications’ do and if I recall it correctly, Perry’s main argument was about how people trusted Yale not to conduct an experiment where a person would get shocked to death. Also I don’t think that Milgram’s original interpretations are the mainstream psychological view today and that probably should be included in the introduction. Wereyoung31 (talk) 23:59, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

I fully agree. The current introduction paragraphs make no mention that the question Milgram set out to answer may not have been answered by his experiments. The citations for this are given in the later paragraphs "critical reception" and "interpretation". I am hence now editing that last intro sentence into a separate paragraph, adding a reference that I feel debunks it nicely. Michi zh (talk) 14:15, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Repetitive sections

A few variations of the experiment are listed in the "Results" section, however there already is a section named "Replications and variations", where some of those same variations are in fact listed again, and in more detail. SchnazMan (talk) 06:17, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

PsyPost / Political Psychology

• Audio tapes reveal mass rule-breaking in Milgram’s obedience experiments
• From legitimate to illegitimate violence: Violations of the experimenter's instructions in Stanley Milgram's “obedience to authority” studies

-- Guy Macon (talk) 20:39, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

How long was the Vietnam War?

The article states the following In his 1974 book Obedience to Authority, Milgram described receiving offers of assistance, requests to join his staff, and letters of thanks from former participants. Six years later (at the height of the Vietnam War

Six plus 1974 is 1980. This is surely not 'at the height of the Vietnam War' Montalban (talk) 12:44, 20 June 2026 (UTC)