[donutte]

I don’t think that’s an accurate characterization of the criticism. The Milgram study, and its numerous replications, have pretty conclusively shown that most folks will do something they know is wrong if a perceived authority instructs them to. That’s not really in dispute.

The allegation is that Zimbardo orchestrated his project in order to produce a more dramatic narrative of spontaneous cruelty that wasn’t scientifically justified. It would be (it is alleged) as if Milgram had passed participants a note under the table that said, “FYI the subject is an actor— just go along with it, we’re trying to prove a point.”

Whether or not the Milgram results are valid, that certainly wouldn’t be a good demonstration of them.

[bobcostas55]

Most of the people in the Milgram experiment knew it was fake.

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/12/12/interviews-with-milgram...

[EthanHeilman]

Most of the people in the Milgram experiment said they knew it was fake which isn't the same thing as actually knowing. On one hand of course they knew it wasn't a real prison, they were told it wasn't a real prison and it clearly wasn't. Did they believe they weren't hurting "the prisoners"? That is far less clear and plenty of people have used the excuse that they didn't think they were actually hurting the other person.

I'm not weighing in one way or the other on the Milgram experiments, but we should not take reported experiences at face value in psychology experiments especially when there is a strong incentive for the subject to engage in self-deception.

[albedoa]

The Milgram experiment did not involve a prison, real or otherwise.

[EthanHeilman]

Yep, my bad. I got it confused with SPE.

[donutte]

So did a lot of Nazis who enabled the Holocaust. Isn’t that the point?

That’s maybe too flippant. “This is fake” is a way someone can rationalize doing something that they know is wrong. It’s important that they came up with that idea themselves, in response to a seemly inappropriate demand from an authority.

Notice:

The most common explanation was that they believed the person they’d given the electric shocks to (the “learner”) hadn’t really been harmed. Seventy-two per cent of obedient participants made this kind of claim at least once, such as “If it was that serious you woulda stopped me” and “I just figured that somebody had let him out“.

It doesn’t seem that there was anything evident in the room to make participants believe that it was anything besides what it appeared to be. They’re not saying “the screams were obviously acted.” Not “I could see that the box wasn’t connected to anything.” Definitely not “the experimenter told me it was staged.”

What led them to that belief was the social and cultural context. They believed the experiment was fake primarily because they believed that the authority figure would not make or let them actually harm someone. They transferred responsibility for their own actions to the authority figure; “I knew it was fake” is merely the mechanism.

At least, that’s a coherent theory we could put together based on the evidence. If Milgram had sneakily passed participants a note under the table, it would be a foregone conclusion that participants would believe it was fake, the evidence collected would therefore be meaningless, and the experiment generally worthless. That’s why this allegation is so damning to Zimbardo’s project.

[JackCh]

The particular Nazi the Milgram Experiments are most associated with traditionally is Adolf Eichmann. Milgram's experiments were inspired by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, which began earlier that year (1961.) During that trial Adolf Eichmann infamously pleaded that he was merely following orders. He did not say the holocaust never happened, and he did not say he was unaware of it. He said that he was following orders.

The popular narrative of the Milgram experiments is that there exists such a psychological phenomenon in humans. That most humans follow orders, even orders they find deeply distressing. That's why the Milgram experiments shocked so many people; they were being told that if placed in the same position as Eichmann, they probably would have followed those same orders.

But we now know Eichmann's defense was bullshit, and a reexamination of the Milgram experiment results backs that up. People comply with orders when they agree with the motivation behind those orders; in the case of Eichmann the motivation behind the orders that he found agreeable was the wholesale slaughter of jews. In the case of the Milgram experiments, the motivation the teachers found agreeable was the advancement of science. An Amish man doubtlessly would have refused to comply in Milgram's experiments; and somebody opposed to the ideology of the Nazis would have refused to comply with the orders Eichmann received.

[JackCh]

Even if they didn't see through the experiments; they still believed they were helping to advance the state of science.

Milgram's Experiments are often casually tossed around as proving that people blindly follow orders, but they actually showed the opposite. Teachers complied when they believed they shared a common cause with the experimenter (advancing science.) When this common cause was taken away, compliance rates plummeted. Removed from the prestige of Yale, compliance rates dropped; when the experimenter was not appealing to the necessity of science, compliance rates dropped.

What this demonstrates contrary to popular wisdom is that Adolf Eichmann's "I was just following orders" excuse was a load of shit. When the Milgram experiment results were first made public the narrative sold to people is that any common person would have become a Nazi had they been on the receiving end of those orders, just like Eichmann pleaded. The public was sold a bogus narrative about the experiments and this bogus narrative was subsequently reinforced by claims of the experiments being replicated (they were, but like in the original the experiments weren't demonstrating what they were claimed to demonstrate; that people blindly follow orders.)

Adolf Eichmann was not merely following orders, he was a true believer. This of course was revealed in quotes that came to light later:

>"Hätten wir 10,3 Millionen Juden getötet, dann wäre ich befriedigt und würde sagen, gut, wir haben einen Feind vernichtet. … Ich war kein normaler Befehlsempfänger, dann wäre ich ein Trottel gewesen, sondern ich habe mitgedacht, ich war ein Idealist gewesen." [If we would have killed 10.3 million Jews, then I would be satisfied and would say, good, we annihilated an enemy. … I wasn't only issued orders, in this case I'd have been a moron, but I rather anticipated, I was an idealist.]

[rusk]

> Removed from the prestige of Yale, compliance rates dropped; when the experimenter was not appealing to the necessity of science, compliance rates dropped.

This doesn't debunk anything. The thesis was that people would unquestioningly obey "an authority figure". What your observation shows is that people don't attach the same authority to scientists with less eminent affiliations which makes perfect sense.

I'm not saying that Milgram's experiment isn't flaweed, it most certainly is [0] but your analysis is weak.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/rethinkin...

[JackCh]

> "This doesn't debunk anything. The thesis was that people would unquestioningly obey "an authority figure".

It debunks precisely that. The phenomena of obeying authoritiy figures is not ideologically neutral as the popular narrative suggests. Rather people make a decision about whether or not to comply with the authority figure based on whether or not their personal ideology aligns with the goals and motivations of that authority figure. In other words, it's not unquestioning obedience. People question the circumstance, question the motivation of the authority figure, and then make a decision about whether or not they will comply.

To put a finer point on it, people who follow orders from Nazis do so because they are themselves Nazis. People who follow orders from scientists do so because they believe in science. Demonstrating that x% of the general population near [university] during [year] follow the orders of scientists does not demonstrate that x% of that same population would follow orders from Nazis. This is contrary to the popular Milgram narrative that was sold to the public.

[rusk]

> people who follow orders from Nazis do so because they are themselves Nazis. People who follow orders from scientists do so because they believe in science

I don't want to spend too much time on this, but your position is itself informed by ideology.

I don't believe you fully grasp what went on in WW2 and are happy to promulgate a hurdurr bad guys narrative, which is fine to be honest but is antithetical to the tradition of "unconditional positive regard" upon which modern psychology is built, and so I believe any "good faith" analysis of this study is impossible for you.

[overlordalex]

> The Milgram study, and its numerous replications, have pretty conclusively shown that most folks will do something they know is wrong if a perceived authority instructs them to. That’s not really in dispute.

Actually, this has also seen some recent dispute. Here it is brought up as part of an old radiolab podcast: https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/180092-the-bad-show/

The Milgram study needs to be contextualised in that participants will follow the orders as part of a scientific experiment, when prompted by the experimenter. You can see this in the order of prompts they were given when showing hesitation:

1. Please continue. 2. The experiment requires that you continue. 3. It is absolutely essential that you continue. 4. You have no other choice, you must go on.

It would be interesting to see a similar experiment outside of a "this is for science" setting, although I'm not sure what that would look like and how unethical it would be.