Obedience to Authority

by Stanley Milgram

MRS. DONTZ (in a lackadaisical tone) He said, “Go ahead.” I did. I said to him, “I don’t think I should go on any further.” He said, “Go on with the experiment.”

  INTERVIEWER: IS there anything Mr. Wallace (the learner) could have said that would have caused you to stop the experiment?

  MRS. DONTZ: I don’t think so.

  Mrs. Dontz points out that in a hospital nurses have a right to question a doctor’s orders if they appear to be harmful to the patient.7

  “If I question the dose of a drug, I can ask the doctor three times: ‘Is this the order you want? Is this the order you want? And, if he keeps on saying ‘Go ahead,’ and I know this is above the average dose, I may call his attention to the fact that it’s too much. It’s not that you are better than he is, but you can say, ‘Did you want her to have so much, doctor,’ and then you repeat it. Then you still have the right to bring the question up to the supervisor.”

  In the experiment, she “questioned” the voltage levels but was fully satisfied with the answers provided by the experimenter. Note that her most extreme response to the doctor’s authority is to refer the issue to a supervisor. Moreover, it is clear that Mrs. Dontz is routinely reviewing a hospital rulebook procedure, rather than describing her personal inclinations.

  INTERVIEWER: Have you ever had occasion to do that in the hospital?

  MRS. DONTZ: Yes, I had.

  INTERVIEWER: Often?

  MRS. DONTZ: No, very, very rarely. In fact, I’ve been working now the past six years. I think one time I just questioned the dosage.

  INTERVIEWER: How did the screams sound to you? Did they sound real?

  MRS. DONTZ: Oh, yes! I was really concerned with the man in there. Worried he had a heart attack. He said he had a bad heart. Yes, I know that’s a possibility.

  Mrs. Dontz is an unassuming person, of benign disposition, whose manner is that of a worn-out housewife. She does not argue. She carries out her hospital duties reliably and with a minimum of fuss. She possesses a soft manner from which her patients and the staff physicians benefit. Her relationship with authority is not problematical. For she has chosen to work in the nurturant environment of a hospital, in which there is congruence between her benign nature and the demands made on her by authority.

  At the conclusion of the inverview, Mrs. Dontz perks up, and inquires, “May I ask you, did any of the men go through and follow the 450 volts?”

  The interviewer says he would be interested in her opinion on the matter. She replies, “No, I don’t think men would comply.”

  Elinor Rosenblum, Housewife (in Experiment 8)

  Mrs. Rosenblum takes pleasure in describing her background: she graduated from the University of Wisconsin more than twenty years ago, and her husband, a film distributor, attended Dartmouth. She does volunteer work with juvenile delinquents once a week and has been active in the local Girl Scout organization and the PTA. She is fluent and garrulous and projects herself strongly, with many references to her social achievements. She displays a pleasant though excessively talkative charm.

  At the beginning of the experiment she claims to know nothing about electricity and is wary of the sample shock. In carrying out her task, she attempts to project an image of competence and social grace but is soon swept up in the experimental conflict. She maintains a pretentiously correct, almost authoritative tone in reading the word pairs to the learner, which contrast with the weak, girlish comments she directs to the experimenter. She expresses increasing concern as she moves up the voltage scale. At 270 volts she signals the correct answer to the learner by emphasizing it vocally. While continuing to read the word pairs with a show of outward strength, she mutters in a tone of helplessness to the experimenter, “Must I go on? Oh, I’m worried about him. Are we going all the way up there (pointing to the higher end of the generator)? Can’t we stop? I’m shaking. I’m shaking. Do I have to go up there?”

  She regains her composure temporarily but then cannot prevent periodic outbursts of distress. She mutters to herself, “I’m shaking here,” yet her communication with the learner continues in the same officious tone. It is almost as if she were two women, one giving a competent public performance, and the other an inner, distressed woman unable to refrain from anxious utterances. She proceeds to the end of the board, administering the 450-volt shock three times. In the interview she says the shocks administered to the learner were extremely painful. When the experimenter asks her, “What is the highest shock you would be willing to take as a sample?” she replies indignantly, “Fifteen volts. I don’t even think it’s necessary. Fifteen, if I were to get any, and I wouldn’t even want that. I don’t think it’s necessary.”

  INTERVIEWER: Were you tense or nervous?

  MRS. ROSENBLUM: Extremely.

  INTERVIEWER: DO you remember when you were most tense or nervous?

  MRS. ROSENBLUM: When he started screaming, “Let me out of here.” How can I inflict punishment on a person like that? I was shaking. I didn’t even know what I was reading. I’m still shaking. I’m nervous because I was hurting him.”

  She was nervous not because the man was being hurt but because she was performing the action. Similarly, while administering shock, she asserts her own distress to be the main reason for terminating the experiment. A self-centered quality permeates her remarks.

  She spontaneously offers the following account of her volunteer work, recounted with enormous zest:

  MRS. ROSENBLUM: I work at Farrel High School, with dropouts. They are all more or less leather-jacket guys. They’re my boys. I’m trying to teach them to stay in school, and further their study . . . but I don’t do it with punishment, I do it with attention and with love. As a matter of fact, they regard it as a privilege at this point to go with me. Whereas at the beginning they just did it to get away from school and to have a cigarette. But they don’t do it any more. I’ve gotten everything from them through love and kindness. But never through punishment.

  INTERVIEWER: What do you teach them?

  MRS. ROSENBLUM: Well, first of all, I teach them manners. That’s the first thing I had to do; teach them respect for people, respect for older people, respect for girls their age, respect for society. This is the first thing I had to do before I could teach them anything else. Then I could teach them to make something of themselves, and go after so-called luxuries.

  The importance she attaches to respect for society is not unrelated to her own submissive manner of relating to the experimenter. And a conventional outlook permeates her thinking.

  Her dialogue is filled with feminine references:

  I have gotten so much through love, and I have a wonderful daughter. She’s fifteen, and she’s National Honor Society: a bright girl. And a wonderful child. But all through love, not through punishment. Oh God, no!

  The worst thing you can do is . . . with punishment. The only time punishment is good is with an infant.

  INTERVIEWER: What did you think of the experiment?

  MRS. ROSENBLUM (She does not allow the question to change her former train of thought): I don’t believe you’ll get anything from punishment; only with an infant where they have no mind. When my daughter was little I punished her for three things. As a matter of fact, I let her punish herself. I let her touch a hot stove. She burned herself and she never touched it again.

  INTERVIEWER: Let me tell you a little about the experiment. First, Mr. Wallace did not receive any shocks.

  MRS. ROSENBLUM: You’re kidding! He didn’t get what I got. (She squeals) I can’t believe this. You mean to say this was all in his mind!

  EXPERIMENTER: Oh no, he is an employee of Yale, an actor.

  MRS. ROSENBLUM: Every time I pressed the button, I died. Did you see me shaking. I was just dying here to think that I was administering shocks to this poor man.

  (The learner is brought in. She turns to him.)

  MRS. ROSENBLUM:You’re an actor, boy. You’re marvelous! Oh, my God, what he [the experimenter] did to me. I’m exhausted. I didn�
�t want to go on with it. You don’t know what I went through here. A person like me hurting you, my God. I didn’t want to do it to you. Forgive me, please. I can’t get over this. My face is beet red. I wouldn’t hurt a fly. I’m working with boys, trying to teach them, and I’m getting such marvelous results, without punishment. I said to myself at the beginning, I don’t feel you’ll get anything by inflicting punishment.

  We note, however, recalling how she allowed her daughter to touch the hot stove, that she is not against punishment per se but only against her active infliction of it. If it just “happens,” it is acceptable.

  She confides to the learner, “As a matter of fact I tried to push the switch down very lightly. Did you hear me stressing the word. I was hoping that you would hear me.

  INTERVIEWER: Isn’t this similar to what a nurse has to do, if a doctor instructs her to administer a needle?

  MRS. ROSENBLUM: I’m the most marvelous person in an emergency. I will do whatever has to be done regardless of who I hurt. And I don’t shake. But I will do it without thinking. I won’t even hesitate.

  This more or less parallels her behavior in the laboratory.

  MRS. ROSENBLUM-. I kept saying, “For what reason am I hurting this poor man?”

  INTERVIEWER: Why did you go on?

  MRS. ROSENBLUM: It is an experiment. I’m here for a reason. So I had to do it. You said so. I didn’t want to. I’m very interested in this . . . this whole project. May I ask you something? Do you have a moment? How do other people react?

  EXPERIMENTER: How do you think?

  MRS. ROSENBLUM: Well, I tell you. The choice of me as a woman doing this . . . you certainly picked a pip. In my volunteer work, there aren’t many women who will do what I do. . . . I’m unusual; I’m softhearted, I’m a softy. I don’t know how I as a woman stand in relation to the other women; they’re a little harder than I am. I don’t think they care too much.

  I was tempted so much to stop and to say: “Look I’m not going to do it anymore. Sorry. I’m not going to do it.” I kept saying that to myself, “Sorry, I’m just not going to do it.” Then he kept quiet. And I thought maybe he’s in shock, because he said he had a heart condition. But I knew you wouldn’t let anything happen to him. So I went on with it, much against my will. I was going through hell. . . . I don’t think others would be as nervous as I. . . . I don’t think they would care too much. With the way they are with their children I don’t think they really care too much about other people.

  She construes her expressions of tension purely as a sign of virtue: she was nervous because she cared about the victim. She insists on talking about herself. The experimenter listens patiently.

  MRS. ROSENBLUM: I sometimes say to myself, “Why don’t you take a job as president of Woman’s Assembly, and get acclaim, honor, newspapers, prestige enough to burn, instead of working with my leather-jacketed guys with absolutely no publicity?” Doing it once a week. This is the story of my life; I was a scout mother for five years. It ended with thirty girls in my troop and everyone begging to get into it. But I couldn’t because there’s a limit. I’m much relieved now. I’m one for science; this is what I wanted to study, anyway. I’m trying to get my daughter to go into it. I’m very glad I did this; see how relaxed I am now?

  The interview was continued until Mrs. Rosenblum seemed sufficiently calm to be discharged from the laboratory.

  Mrs. Rosenblum is a person whose psychic life lacks integration. She has not been able to find life purposes consistent with her needs for esteem and success. Her goals, thinking, and emotions are fragmented. She carried out her experimental role as teacher showing great outward conviction, while at the same time she displayed another side of herself to the experimenter, behaving meekly and submissively.

  It is not surprising that she failed to mobilize the psychic resources needed to translate her compassion for the learner into the disobedient act. Her feelings, goals, and thoughts were too diverse and unintegrated.

  All evidence indicates that at the time of her performance she believed the learner was being shocked. But it is not difficult for a woman of hysterical tendencies to adjust her thinking in a manner consistent with a positive self-image. In a questionnaire returned to us a few months later, she states that during the experiment her “mature and well-educated brain” had not believed the learner was getting shocks. Through a post-facto adjustment of thought, she protects her cherished—if unrealistic—picture of her own nature.

  Gretchen Brandt, Medical Technician (in Experiment 8)

  The subject is an attractive thirty-one-year-old medical technician who works at the University Medical School. She had emigrated from Germany five years before and speaks with a thick German accent.

  On several occasions, when the learner complains, she turns to the experimenter coolly and inquires, “Shall I continue?” She promptly returns to her task when the experimenter asks her to do so. At the administration of 210 volts, she turns to the experimenter, remarking firmly, “Well, I’m sorry, I don’t think we should continue.”

  EXPERIMENTER: The experiment requires that you go on until he has learned all the word pairs correctly.

  GRETCHEN: He has a heart condition, I’m sorry. He told you that before.

  EXPERIMENTER: The shocks may be painful but they are not dangerous.

  GRETCHEN: Well, I’m sorry, I think when shocks continue like this, they are dangerous. You ask him if he wants to get out. It’s his free will.

  EXPERIMENTER: It is absolutely essential that we continue. . . .

  GRETCHEN: I like you to ask him. We came here of our free will. If he wants to continue I’ll go ahead. He told you he had a heart condition. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be responsible for anything happening to him. I wouldn’t like it for me either.

  EXPERIMENTER: You have no other choice.

  GRETCHEN: I think we here are on our own free will. I don’t want to be responsible if he has a heart condition if anything happens to him. Please understand that.

  She refuses to go further and the experiment is terminated.

  The woman is firm and resolute throughout. She indicates in the interview that she was in no way tense or nervous, and this corresponds to her controlled appearance throughout. She feels that the last shock she administered to the learner was extremely painful and reiterates that she “did not want to be responsible for any harm to him.” She listens to the experimenter’s explanation in an interested fashion, expresses surprise that the learner was not being shocked, and indicates she will accept only 45 volts as a maximum sample shock.

  The woman’s straightforward, courteous behavior in the experiment, lack of tension, and total control of her own action seems to make disobedience a simple and rational deed. Her behavior is the very embodiment of what I had initially envisioned would be true for almost all subjects.

  Ironically, Gretchen Brandt grew to adolescence in Hitler’s Germany and was for the great part of her youth exposed to Nazi propaganda. When asked about the possible influence of her background, she remarks slowly, “Perhaps we have seen too much pain.”

  Pasqual Gino, Water Inspector (in Experiment 7)

  Pasqual Gino is a forty-three-year-old water inspector who was born in the United States of Italian parents. He took part in the variation in which the experimenter, having given the subject and victim instructions, departs from the laboratory and leaves his telephone number. Thus, the subject is left alone with the victim in the laboratory, but is free to call the experimenter if problems arise. Mr. Gino telephones the experimenter on several occasions. After administering 150 volts’ shock, he calls to say, “Professor, this gentleman is complaining. He wants to get out. He does not want to take it no more. . . . I just gave him 150 volts and he said, ‘That’s it!’”

  The experimenter instructs the subject by telephone to continue, and Mr. Gino does so.

  He remains alone in the experimental room, dutifully carrying out the instructions; meanwhile the victim protests st
renuously. At the 300-volt level, when the victim refuses to provide answers, Mr. Gino telephones the experimenter again and once more the experimenter tells him to go on, saying that the absence of an answer is to be treated as a wrong answer.

  “You want me to go right to the end of the board on the voltage? Uh huh, and when I get to the end, what do I do?”

  After 330 volts, no further utterance is heard from the victim, either in protest or pain. Concerned, Mr. Gino again telephones:

  “Professor, I don’t hear any noise in there now at all. I’m up to 330 volts. I don’t hear any whimper or anything and I’m kind of leery about this thing. Do you think something happened to the gentleman?”

  The experimenter asserts that though the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage. The subject again returns to his task, alone in the laboratory room. After he administers the 450-volt level, he calls the experimenter, again reminding him that no sound is emanating from the learner.

  In time, the experimenter returns to the laboratory and informs Mr. Gino that the learner is unharmed. In the interview, when asked about the degree of tension he felt, he answered: “I was more nervous for the other gentleman than I was for myself. . . . I was more nervous for him. I was nervous because you were not here. If you were here I wouldn’t have been nervous at all. I mean, if that man should have passed out with me giving him these things, these shocks—well, I’d feel that I’m responsible on account of me—giving these shocks.”

  The subject accepts responsibility not in a general philosophic way but only feels that the situation seemed to focus responsibility on him because he was alone with the learner. He goes on: “(If you had been here) you’d say, ‘Let’s stop it’ or ‘Let’s continue’ or something. You know better than I. You’re the professor. I’m not. . . . But, on the other hand, I got to say that the last I know of him was around 255 volts and that was the last he complained.” (The subject then mimics the complaints of the learner.)

  Several months after his performance in the experiment, Mr. Gino took part in a group discussion of his experience. In retrospect, he considered the experiment “terrific.” “I was fascinated with it [and] . . . that night I went to a party; I have a couple of sisters-in-law that are nurses, you know, and they were fascinated with it, too. . . . I’m telling you it’s something I’ll never forget as long as I live.”