Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View

Half a century ago, social scientist Stanley Milgram carried out a series of experiments. The teacher is told to administer electroshocks in progressively more painful degrees to the learner. The teacher--unaware that the learner is an actor receiving no shocks at all--is the real focus of the study. These controversial and criticized experiments illustrate how people will obey authority regardless of consequences. [Milgram's] investigations accomplish what we should expect of responsible social science: to inform the intellect without trivializing the phenomenon.--Science