Stanley Milgram
How ordinary people come to obey
A social psychologist who showed how ordinary people can follow harmful orders.
techniques
It is the extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority that constitutes the chief finding.
Who they were
Stanley Milgram designed one of psychology's most unsettling experiments, asking ordinary volunteers to deliver what they believed were painful shocks simply because an authority told them to. Most complied far past the point of conscience, revealing how readily people surrender personal responsibility inside a chain of command. His work shifted the question of evil away from cruel individuals and toward the situations and systems that shape them. It remains a cornerstone for understanding obedience, complicity, and moral courage.
Famous books
What they left on the shelf
Terms they cared about
Ideas worth knowing
Their techniques
How the work was done
Their big idea
Obedience Studies
Stanley Milgram showed that ordinary people would follow an authority's instructions to harm a stranger far further than anyone expected. His work asked how readily we hand over our sense of responsibility once someone else appears to be in charge.
Questions in their spirit
What they’d ask you
Sit with one. Answer online, or in the app.
Carry the idea forward
Milgram — What they’d ask you
Psipas asks you one small, honest question at a time — and builds the picture from your answers.