What did Milgram's obedience study show, and one ethical concern raised?

• A. Obedience only occurs in laboratory settings.
• B. People tend to comply with authority figures even when harming others; ethical concern: deception and potential harm to participants.
• C. Authority has no effect on compliance.
• D. People resist authority.

Answer: (B)

The key idea is how strongly people follow authority, even when it leads to harming others. Milgram’s study showed that ordinary adults will comply with an authority figure's instructions to administer what they believe are painful electric shocks to another person, continuing despite cries of pain and objections. In the classic setup, a participant acts as the “teacher” and, under the experimenter’s urging, delivers increasingly severe shocks, demonstrating that situational pressure and the perceived legitimacy of the authority can override personal morals. This finding highlights the power of obedience in shaping behavior, not just traits of individuals.

An ethical concern raised by the study is deception: participants were misled about the nature of the task and the reality of the shocks, and they were exposed to significant psychological distress under the belief they were harming someone. This ties into broader worries about informed consent and the potential for lasting emotional impact, which spurred reforms in how social psychology experiments are designed and reviewed.