Milgram, Stanley. Obedience to Authority

In 1961, in response to the Eichmann trial and the so-called Nuremberg defense (just following orders), social psychologist Stanley Milgram began a series of experiments on obedience to authority figures. In his experiments, participants were supposed to give what they thought were increasingly intensifying electric shocks to another person for each wrong answer. A large proportion of the participants, who were ordinary people, were prepared to obey orders causing serious injury and distress. While Milgram’s experiments were subject to criticism at the time (he published a book about the experiments in 1974), mostly with respect to research ethics and methodology, they are now considered to be among the most important psychological studies of the 20th century. Psychologists have returned to the experiments again and again and have replicated or varied them. Furthermore, there are countless film, theater, or performance art adaptations of the experiments.

Milgram, Stanley. Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. 1974. HarperCollins, 2009.