The best revisionist history dramatically changes the way we see important events. This book is revisionist history about one of the most famous psychology experiments ever done -- Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments at Yale. Behind the Shock Machine changes how we view the experiments and Milgram.
Since Milgram’s results were first published in 1963, they have been seen as strong evidence of humanity’s willingness to obey authority figures to hurt others. In the common recounting, nearly two-thirds of subjects progressively administered shocks they believed to be painful and potentially dangerous to others at the urging of the experimenter.
The fact is that Milgram had conducted 20 experiments with different procedural variations or conditions -- and with different results. With some procedures, more than six of ten people disobeyed the experimenter’s orders. Milgram downplayed or hid this more complicated reality; he did not publish a report about the variations until a decade after the initial report. One variation was never published. Instead, Milgram chose one particular experiment to tell the story, where 65 percent of the subjects inflicted shocks up to the maximum.
Using this result, Milgram linked it to the Nazi Holocaust. He claimed that his results illustrate human willingness to follow orders to harm others, a broad conclusion considering the particular experiment involved just 40 men. This has since become received wisdom about human nature, while his research has become part of popular culture.
We now understand, however, that scientists can produce results to support particular agendas. Milgram ignored his experiments that resulted in majorities disobeying orders. Those results did not fit the agenda. In short, the truth is not as black and white as Milgram had led everyone to believe.
In his private papers, Milgram explained his agenda: “My is interest in (obedience) is purely personal, and concerns the fact that many of my friends and relatives were badly hurt by other men who were simply following orders.”
Milgram’s parents were Jewish immigrants, and they had relatives in Europe before and during WWII. The trial of Adolph Eichmann ended just as Milgram’s experiments began. The phrase “banality of evil” comes from Hannah Arendt’s influential book on Eichmann, where she attempted to explain how ordinary people become tools of violence and repression in authoritarian systems. Milgram made the explicit connection between his research and the Holocaust, saying the crimes against humanity could’ve happened in the United States.
In addition to Milgram’s questionable selection and omission when he publicized his results, there were also ethical issues with how the experiments were conducted. Milgram claimed that once the experiment ended, subjects were told the truth about the setup to relieve their anxiety. The fact is that three of four subjects did not receive the truth at the time. Some had to wait months or a year, while some were never told what they had not actually tortured or hurt anyone.
Even at the time, there was criticism of Milgram’s deceptive and manipulative methods that caused severe stress upon subjects. Harvard denied Milgram tenure in part due to the controversy. His experiments helped provoke a discussion in his field about the ethics of research. In 1973, the APA adopted stricter ethical standards, such as requiring informed consent from subjects, that would preclude the replication of Milgram’s experiments.
Perry interviewed several subjects of the highly publicized study. She also went to the Yale archives to see Milgram’s records. She learned that most subjects did not want to continue shocking the “learner,” but were cajoled, reassured and ordered to continue. Both the obedient and disobedient subjects resisted inflicting pain.
Perry concludes that Milgram wanted a dramatic result to call attention to his research. His experiment was better theatre than science. Therefore he adjusted his experimental procedures until he obtained his desired results.
The archive record reveals how carefully the experiment was designed and tweaked through five variations until it achieved the highest obedience rate. When subjects were told explicitly that the shocks were harmful, they stopped administering them. In the publicized experiment, by contrast, the experimenter repeatedly assured subjects the shocks were not dangerous.
In early variations, subjects who resisted four times were classified disobedient and the experiment ended. In later variations, however, four instances of resistance were not sufficient. Instead, the experimenter continued to prod and reassure the subjects, in one case 26 times, and in other cases 14, 13, and 11 times respectively. As Gates puts it, Milgram moved the goal posts to obtain the right result. It’s clear the experimenter hired by Milgram saw his job as gaining compliance, which was easier to do when bypassing the four-times rule. One variation never published involved pairs of relatives or neighbors as teacher and as learner. The majority of teachers refused to continue, which may account for why it was never publicized.
Another fact undermining Milgram’s conclusions about the human tendency to obey orders to commit harm is that many subjects said in the post-experiment questionnaire that they had suspected a hoax and played along. They had doubted that Yale would actually risk shocking a man with a heart condition.
According to Milgram’s data, only 56 percent of subjects had fully believed the “learner” was getting painful shocks, and 62 percent of that group had disobeyed. Of those who obeyed to the end, more than half had expressed “some doubts” or thought the shocks “probably or certainly” weren’t real. This data contradicts Milgram’s interpretation of his results, but it was confirmed by an unpublished analysis of the questionnaires Milgram had conducted.
Gina Perry has been criticized for her accusatory tone and sensationalist approach, albeit not for her facts. But her book is written for a general audience, not for PhDs expecting a dry article in a scientific journal. More importantly, she found a lot of contradictory evidence that Milgram had kept under wraps. Her motives matter far less than Milgram’s.
Behind the Shock Machine is successful revisionism in providing relevant details not found in Milgram’s publications. Those details undermine both the results Milgram did report and his interpretation purporting to illuminate human nature. After this book, the obedience experiments should never again be reported the same way they have been for more than half a century. Readers now understand more accurately how the experiments were actually conducted, and can discount Milgram’s conclusions accordingly. ###
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Top reviews from other countries
Eric Blair
Un livre salutaire : n'importe qui ne peut pas se tranformer en bourreau
Reviewed in France on November 28, 2021
Benjamin Ayling
Fascinating Book which left me Shocked (pun intended)
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 10, 2014Professor Steve
Important book, could have been better written...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 3, 2014observer100
The ethical issues are not a new discovery but the book is still useful
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 15, 2014