1933-1984
By: Zach Melms
 Great
Depression
 End of prohibition
 Franklin Roosevelt
 Racism
 WWII
 Nuremburg
trials
 Social

Psychologist
Hated directional hypothesis testing
 Drugs





Peyote
Mescaline
Weed
Amphetamines
Cocaine
 Prostitutes?
 Samuel


Hungary
Moved to America in 1921
 Adele


Milgram
Milgram
Romania
Moved to America in 1913
 Met
in America
 Married February 1931
 Parents owned and ran a bakery
 Older


sister Marjorie
Not very close as children
“throw him in the incinerator”
 Stanley


Born in South Bronx 1933
Naturally inquisitive
 Younger

brother Joel
Close relationship
 Moved
houses a lot due to the depression
 Excelled


in school
Classmates with Phillip Zimbardo
Graduated High school in 3 years
 Attended


Queens College
Political Science
Trip to France
 Originally
University
denied entrance to Harvard
 Took



6 classes at 3 different Universities
Brooklyn University
Hunter University
New York University
 Accepted


into Harvard in 1954
Gordon Allport
Met Solomon Asch
 “Most
important scientific influence”
 Milgram was his teacher’s assistant for a year
 Studied conformity
 Asch conformity experiment

Naïve participant agreed with the majority
approximately 1/3 the time
 Inspired
Milgram’s interest into conformity
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDDyT
1lDhA
 Cross

Norway



National Comparison
College Students/ factory workers
Jante Laws
France
 Failed
statistics portion necessary for
graduation
 Spent 1 year at each place
 Moved
to Princeton to help his mentor
Solomon Asch
 Miserable


Poor housing
No free time for his dissertation
 Assisted

him in book on conformity research
Received no credit
 Became
assistant professor in 1960
 Married his wife Alexandra Menkin in 1961
 Kids


Michele 1964
Marc 1967
 Started
his Shock Tests
 Later started “Lost Letter Tests”
 2/3
went all the way in his original set up
 Had more than 20 variations




Distance between participant and “learner”
Distance between participant and experimenter
Seeing others defy the experimenter
Participant can choose the level of shock
 No
difference between male and female
 Trial of Adolf Eichmann
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwqNP9
HRy7Y
 0:19-2:20, 4:06-4:34
 Used
deception
 Participants experienced high levels of stress
 This and things like Tuskegee Syphilis Study
lead to the creation of the IRB
 Assistant
professor 1963
 Continued “Lost Letter”
 Started the “Small World Problem”



6 degrees of separation
Turns into 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9uTITxwoM
 Denied
tenure in 1966
 Graduate
Center of the City University of
New York
 Head of Social Psychology PhD department
1967
 Expected to leave in 5 years
 Created an Urban Emphasis
 Interested
in “Overload”
 With help from a student they created the
movie “The City and the Self”
 Looked at:


Mental Maps
Subway Norms


56% give up their seat
Familiar Strangers
 Antisocial
 Gained
permission from CBS
 Had a show replicated 3 times and only
changed the ending
 Resulted in no increase in antisocial behavior
 Results not special but the fact that he got
such control over the Independent variable
 Writing
style was understandable to all
readers
 Used comedy to keep readers interested
 Often used sarcasm in academic debates

“Orne’s suggestion that the subjects only feigned
sweating, trembling, and stuttering to please the
experimenter is pathetically detached from
reality, equivalent to the statement that
hemophiliacs bleed to keep their physicians
busy”
 Knowing
now that Milgram did illegal things
such as drugs/prostitution does that make
you view his work any differently?
 Does all of the valuable information that we
gained from his studies justify his unethical
treatment of participants?
 Alic,
M. (2008, January 1). Milgram, Stanley.
Retrieved April 29, 2015, from
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/St
anley_Milgram.asp
 Blass, T. (2004). The man who shocked the
world: The life and legacy of Stanley
Milgram. New York: Basic Books