The Milgram Experiment

This is one of the most talked-about and well-known experiments.   If you have gone through middle school in the Los Alto School District, then you have read the book Night by Elie Wiesel.  You all are aware of the horrors that were inflicted on Jewish and other minority groups by the Nazi's during the Holocaust.  You may be wondering how people could do those kinds of things to other people.  We all know that during that time not all Germans were Nazi's or believed in the Nazi system but through a study done by Stanley Milgram at Yale University.  The point of the experiment was to see how people react under authority.  This models how people lived under Nazi government and how easily people obey without question, even if it means hurting another human being.  In the experiment, there was the "scientist" who was doing a pretend study on how people learn under pressure.  There was a fake test and an actor, posing as the "learner", who would receive a fake electric shock every time they answered a question wrong from the people being experimented on.  One would go in the room, and be asked to "shock" the actor with increasing pain each time, when they got a question wrong.  The actor on the other side of the wall would yelp in pain.  Most people continued shocking until the pain level got really high, then would question the "scientist" asking if they were sure they wanted to hurt the person.  Some continued without question.  All the scientist needed to say to make the people continue "shocking" the actor was to say that it must be done and the experiment must be completed.  This shows how easily people are coerced to do things they themselves do not believe in.  We cannot say that the actions of the Germans during the Nazi rule are just, but because of this experiment we now know the answer to the question, "how could these people do those things".