Stanley Milgram By Chelsea Washburn Early Life Born on August 15, - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Stanley Milgram

By Chelsea Washburn

Early Life

• Born on August 15, 1933
• Stanley named after grandfather named Simcha, which is Hebrew for

joy

• Parents
• Samuel (baker) and Adele Milgram
• Fought in WWI
• POW
• Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe
• Met in US and married in 1931

Siblings

• Older sister Marjorie born a year and a half

earlier

• Didn’t like Stanley at first
• Younger brother Joel born five years later
• Played pranks with Joel
• Sodium bomb and other trouble-making schemes

Childhood

• Moved a lot
• South Bronx
• Schooling
• PS77 on Ward Avenue
• High intelligence (158)
• Often played pranks

Childhood

• Two noteworthy experiences
• Power of groups – witnessed protesters
• Criticism for measuring something without due regard to others –

in this case, trying to measure the distance between a set of beds and hurting his cousin

• Foreshadowing later experiences
• Relationship with parents
• Loved his father
• Liked it when people compared him to his father

Childhood

• WWII
• Father did not want drafted so family moved to NJ tempoarily
• Worked for war effort
• Religiosity
• Family not religiously observant, but identified strongly with

Jewish culture

• Bar Mitzvah
• Expressed concern over the war

College

• Father’s bakery fell apart due to dispute with his brother so he

bought his own

• 1950 – Queens College
• Liked women… a lot
• 1953 – toured France
• Spoke French well
• Father died December 11, 1953
• Mother found work in a bakery
• Worried about his own possibly premature death
• Switched from political science to psychology
• Friend Bernard Fried had influence

Harvard – Fall 1954

• Ford Foundation Scholarship
• Allport – mentor
• Social Relations Program
• Jerome Bruner – taught cognitive processes
• Financial aid worries and regain
• Solomon Asch and conformity
• 1956 – research assistant to Asch

Dissertation Part 1 1957-58

• National character and conformity
• Variation on Asch’s experiment, but recordings were used in the place of physically present confederates
• Disliked hypothesis-testing
• Allport as supervisor
• Norway
• Culturally very group-based
• Conditions – college students
• First Condition – 62% conformity
• Baseline Condition – 56%
• Aircraft Condition – 50%
• Attributed to safety signals on airplanes
• Private Condition – 50%
• Answers not given publically for the group to hear
• Later: Censure (confrontation) Condition – 75%
• Initial plan for US comparison changed to France
• Other Norway experiments
• Bell Condition (different bell tones) – 69%
• Requested repetition
• Repeated Aircraft and Censure Conditions with factory workers
• Differences not statistically significant
• Ethicality

Dissertation Part 2 1957-58

• Paris, France
• Less conformity: 50% compared to Norwegian 62%
• Baseline – 50%
• Aircraft – 48%
• Private – 34%
• Censure – 59%
• Bell – 58%
• Fluctuations similar
• More independent

Asch’s Offer

• Help with book
• Move to Princeton
• Tough time juggling everything, including the book and his
• wn work

Move to Yale

• Move to Yale
• Stanley’s feelings about Harvard
• Harvard, in Stanley’s eyes remained the pillar of academic

excellence

• Everything else was sub-par

The Shock Machine – Obedience to Authority

Milgram’s life during his most (in)famous experiment:

The Reasoning

• Sketch of shock machine
• Issues with Buss’ machine and his work on aggression
• Creation of shock machine
• Pilot Test
• Grant Proposal
• “Responsibility to Subjects”
• Told to use regular people

Marriage

• 1961 – Met wife, Sasha Menkin
• Born in Bronx
• Dancer
• Liked art

Overview of the Shock Machine

• Statistics and elements
• August and September 1961
• Final machine
• Experimenter
• Subject
• Pilot done where learner and

subject were separated by a screen where shadow was visible

• Learner
• https://www.youtube.com/watc

h?v=xOYLCy5PVgM

Conditions

• Remote Condition – Not visible, protest after 300 volts, then no

more responses, pound on wall at 315 volts, and then silence – no answer treated as wrong – with heart condition

• No subject stopped before 300 volts
• 65 % to full voltage
• Voice-Feedback Condition – still separate room, but learner used

increasing level of complaints (recorded) – without heart condition

• 62.5% to full voltage
• Proximity Condition – learner few feet from subject (complaints

acted)

• 40% to full voltage
• Touch-Proximity Condition – distance to zero – learner had to put

hand on plate to receive shock, noncompliance resulted in forced shock by subject

• 30% to full voltage
• All groups were male except one
• Females performed on par with their male counterparts

Discussion

• How do you think people in modern times would fare in

Milgram’s experiment?

• Would you go to 450 volts?
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwqNP9HRy7Y

Post-Experiment

• Film Obedience – 1962
• Filmed reactions of participants
• Continued skepticism concerning Buss
• Buss had developed a similar machine to Milgram about the same time

as Milgram’s experiment, although Buss was studing aggression, not

• bedience

Backlash

• Complaint to APA by member of Yale Psychology Department
• Ethics
• Milgram used debriefing
• Milgram’s diary at first shows evidence of self-doubt, but that

eventually blew away

• Martin Orne – said subjects enter lab in cooperative mood

and that they eventually found out shocks were fake

• Milgram’s response: “Orne’s suggestion that the subjects only

feigned sweating, trembling, and stuttering to please the experimenters pathetically detached from reality, equivalent to the statement that hemophiliacs bleed to keep their physicians busy.”

Discussion

• Do you think Milgram’s experiment was unethical?
• It can be very hard to get an experiment passed by the IRB

nowadays, even for the most benign experiments.

• Have we gone to far?
• Is it wrong to make people feel distress, even if that distress

comes from learning something about themselves?

News Coverage

• “Behavioral Study of Obedience” which was the first article
• n the experiments was published in the Journal of Abnormal

and Social Psychology.

• Remote Condition
• More backlash
• Milgram’s post-surveys
• Engaging style of writing

Return to Harvard

• Three-year appointment as an assistant professor in the Department of

Social Relations

• Put Harvard in high regard
• Published poems and such
• Move to Cambridge
• First child – Michele born November 1964
• Second child – Marc born January 1967
• Family man
• Liberal, democratic causes
• Against war
• For disarmament
• Surprise Experiments
• Thought he was joking when he ran into a class and said that Kennedy was

dead – 1963

Cambridge Years

• Lost-Letter Technique
• Measuring Community Attitudes
• Small World Phenomenon
• Based upon a conversation between Everett Rodgers and a student named Pedro that

somehow had a connection brought some light to the phenomenon

• Six Degrees of Separation
• Problems Publishing
• Not using journals
• A Changed Social Relations Department
• Paul Hollander (friend) – Sociologist
• Disagreement on issues such as Communism rather than Nazism, opposition to Vietnam

and no opposition, etc.

• Was not promoted at Harvard - 1967
• Hans Tach said his teaching style was too harsh and debilitating
• Traumatic for him
• Six Day War
• Family supported Israel

Looking for Work

• Stanley created division and controversy
• Wanted an urban, not rural atmosphere, so he didn’t accept
• ffers from places like Cornell
• Howard Leventhal helped him
• Leventhal was recruited by the City University of New York’s

(CUNY) Graduate Center by Silvan Tomkins

• Told Tomkins he’d only accept if Milgram was offered
• Ultimately, Leventhal accepted an offer from UW-Madison since

Harvard was keeping Stanley in suspense for too long while they made their decision to promote him.

• However, CUNY still made an offer to Stanley and he accepted

CUNY, for the rest of his years

• Conflicted feelings – obviously not Harvard
• Children’s development
• Michele growing up fast
• CUNY itself
• Graduate school fairly new
• Dean Mina Rees
• Milgram as an “equal opportunity insulter” as told by student John

Sabini

• Perks of being a genius
• Irwin Katz – friend
• Polarized opinions
• Why?
• Continuing problem with drugs like amphetamines, cocaine, and marijuana
• Good chairman for doctoral dissertations – very helpful and acted as a

student’s advocate

CUNY Experiments

• The Kitty Genovese Attack and Urban Psychology
• Concept of “overload”
• Mental Maps of Cities
• Power of Norms
• Sasha’s mother commented on how no one gave her a seat on the

bus/subway, but she didn’t ask for one

• Stanley used his students to test
• No justification condition – 56% gave up seats, 12.3% compromised by moving over
• Trivial justification condition – 41.9%
• Overheard Condition – 36.6%
• Student Harold Takooshian continued with Urban research
• Familiar Strangers (people who saw each other every day but didn’t

speak)

• 47% wondered about them
• 32% said they had a slight inclanation

Giant CBS study on effect of TV violence on viewer

• Three different versions of an episode of Medical Center
• Differing versions of violence concerning a donation box
• Protagonist loses job and takes money from donation box
• In one he gets caught, but in the other, he doesn’t.
• Third version consists of him putting money into the box
• Subjects were shown different versions and promised a radio for

their participation. Upon entering a building to get their prize, they find a donation box. The idea was to measure their level of aggression upon seeing what actually awaited them.

• Ingenious design, but no support for link of TV violence and

actual violence, in conflict with other studies

Experiments and Desire to Write his own Book

• Extending Research on Psychological Maps –

1971

• Paris, France
• Wanted to work on his book since 1963
• Lots of Troubles
• Angry, despite his liberal leanings, concerning

affirmative action. He thought hiring should be based completely on merit.

• Finished book in 1973
• Took a while to get started since his funds depleted

and Serge Moscovici had to bail him out

• Eventually, he was able to conduct the experiment,

but there were doubts about its actual significance

• Finally Published – 1974

Milgram and Film

• Filming
• Harry From and Milgram with The City and the Self
• Love of filming
• Filmography
• Invitation to Social Psychology and Conformity and

Independence – 1975

• Human Aggression and Nonverbal Communication – 1976
• George Bellak heard about the experience and made the made-

for-TV movie The Tenth Level starring William Shatner

Lectures

• Obedience to authority in the legal system by Association of

the Bar of the City of New York – May 1977

• Conference of Terrorism in Evian, France – June 1977
• Cults and new religious differences by the Anti-Defamation

League of B’nai B’rith – January 1979

• Future of cities at Denison University – April 1979
• Distinguished Alumnus, Queens College – June 1981
• Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences – 1983

Milgram’s Decline

• NSF grant declined
• Film regarding research ethicality turned down despite

recommendations

• Cyranoids
• Kind of like ventriloquism with a real person
• Others said that his innovative genius was being put to poor use on

phenomena

• Appointed Distinguished Lecturer of Psychology at CUNY –

1980

• First Heart Attack – May 1980
• Second Heart Attack – June 1981
• Said he didn’t want a heart transplant

Milgram’s Decline - Personality Change

• After heart attack, Stanley became a lot kinder and less
• sarcastic. He was a lot mellower.
• Took a sabbatical the summer of 1982
• Stanley was able to basically master computers, impressed with their

capabilities

• Michele went to Vassar (1982) and Marc to Brandeis (1984)
• Sasha as social worker
• “Cutting in lines” added to journal
• Vertical city (How does living in skyscraper modify behavior?)

and bringing Asch to the computer age in 1983

• Elected as a Fellow for the American Academy of Arts and

Sciences

Milgram’s Final Years

• Trip with Marc to tour colleges – Summer 1983
• Fall 1983-1984, Stanley invited to speak on multiple occasions on how

his obedience experiments related to Orwell’s novel 1984.

• Stanley finally able to talk about cyranoids absentee-style in August

1984

• Vacation to Cape Cod
• Third heart attack – June 30, 1984
• Fourth heart attack – July 18, 1984
• Sense of humor retained
• Reasons for going on
• Sasha – always sent wife end of year letter
• Work
• Judaism
• Back in School for Fall Semester 1984

Milgram’s Death

• December 20, 1984
• Chaired the successful doctoral dissertation of his student,

Christina Taylor

• Later, around 4pm, Stanley told his friend Katz that he wasn’t

feeling well. Katz wanted to take him to the hospital immediately, but Stanley didn’t want Sasha to wait. Sasha was able to take them to the hospital where Stanley died a short time later.

Legacy - Discussion

• Does anyone have a favorite psychologist, sociologist, etc.

that has helped inspired them to be in their current field?

Bibliography

• http://www.nndb.com/people/019/000119659/stanley-

milgram-1-sized.jpg

• http://smilgram.weebly.com/uploads/7/0/2/5/7025392/130386

1633.jpg

• https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_460w/Boston/2011-

2020/2013/09/23/BostonGlobe.com/ReceivedContent/Image s/Mind1.jpg

• http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403550976l/676723.jpg
• Blass, T. (2004). The man who shocked the world: The

life and legacy of Stanley Milgram. New York: Basic Books.