The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram
By Thomas Blass
Basic Books, 2004, 360 pages
Reviewed by Catherine MacLennan
The "shock" in the book's title refers to the social psychology research that brought Stanley Milgram fame - the obedience experiment that revealed that ordinary citizens in their willingness to submit to authority would inflict pain on others, in the form of administering shocks, even when the person receiving the shock begs them to stop. The "shock" also refers to the public's reaction to the experiment and its revelations. The academic establishment was also "shocked," in a different way - it criticized Milgram, his experiment and his methods.
Thomas Blass's book combines biographical detail with discussion of his major experiments. Much of his life story is an academic's life: it begins with with brilliance as a student, then dealings with advisors, struggles with research funding, obtaining positions, professional achievement, inspiring divided opinion (brilliant/funny? arrogant/dictatorial?), struggling again for research funds, positions and recognition. The real creativity, passion and drama (and interest for the reader) lies not in these parts of his life, (or his social life), but in his social psychology experiments. This is when the book comes alive, with the drama of the obedience experiments and the quieter innovation of his later work, such as the "familiar stranger" experiment.
While a graduate student at Harvard, Milgram was assigned to be Solomon Asch's assistant for the year. Asch was creative and philosophical, and his conformity experiment influenced Milgram. Asch's experiment involved putting an individual in a group situation, where there the individual would have to respond to a simple, easily answerable question - matching a length of a line with one of three lines of varying length. The other members of the experiment were "in" on the experiment, and would say the wrong answer. Would the subject of the experiment cling to what he felt to be the right answer, or would he give in to the pressure of the group and follow what they gave as the answer? One third of the time, the subject went along with the group's wrong answer. Milgram wanted to study conformity and national differences and performed a similar experiment in Norway, with sound - the subject was to select which, of two tones played was longer. A group of five other participants, that were in on the experiment would pick the wrong answer, and the subject was left to decide whether to stick with the right answer or go with the crowd's wrong answer. In the first experiment, 62% went with the group's wrong answer. Milgram varied the experiment by using college students, factory workers, and including taunting lines from the group to further pressure the subject ("Trying to show off?"). This "censure condition" made the conformity rate to go to 75%.
These early conformity experiments along with the major question of the period - how to explain the atrocities of WWIl - the Holocaust happening in a "civilized country" - paved the way for Milgram's groundbreaking obedience experiment. Blass states: "Social psychologists in the 1960s practiced a sleight-of-hand science…a well-executed social psychology experiment often owed as much to dramaturgy and stagecraft as to the tenets of the scientific method." There was a certain amount of theatre involved in the experiment: actors, costumes, a script and a prop. The experiment involved two people who were in on the experiment, who pretended otherwise: The "Learner" who had to memorize some words and if he got them wrong would be administered a shock by the "Teacher" (the subject) under the direction of the "Experimenter." The "Experimenter" wore a lab coat to look authoritative, the "Learner" (played by an accountant) would shout out the same screams and pleading lines, and Milgram had a Shock Generator instrument built to look convincingly real. A photograph of the "Simulated Shock Generator" is included in the book, and the levels of shocks are listed from "Slight Shock" to "Danger: Severe Shock" and two final switches marked "XXX." (The shocks weren't real. The Learner was never shocked, though a small shock was applied to the subject initially as a sample so he would think that shocks were being applied). Milgram, and later, the public were shocked at the results of the experiments, dismayed that so many participants continued to obey to the point of administering the most severe shock level. He carried out variations of the experiment, taking into account the proximity of the learner - whether he could be seen or not, whether the learner's complaints or begging to have the experiment ended made a difference; having the learner seated a few feet away from the subject; having the subject touch the learner (by having the subject place the learner's hand onto a shock plate to receive a shock). The first two had an obedience rate of 65% and 62.5%, the last two 40% and 30%.
Blass quotes Milgram in saying how the experiment was "very disturbing" to watch and cites Milgram's description of one of the participants:
"The learner, seated alongside him, begs him to stop, but with robotic impassivity, he continues the procedure. What is extraordinary is his apparent total indifference to the learner; he hardly takes cognizance of him as a human being. Meanwhile, he relates to the experimenter in a submissive and courteous fashion. At the 330-volt level, the learner refuses not only to touch the shock plate, but also to provide any answers. Annoyed, [the participant] turns to him and chastises him: 'You better answer and get it over with. We can't stay here all night'…When he administers 450 volts, he turns to the experimenter and asks: 'Where do we go from here, Professor?' His tone is deferential and expresses his willingness to be a cooperative subject, in contrast to the learner's obstinacy."
Incredibly, despite how much these powerful experiments revealed about human social relations, the academic establishment criticized Milgram for his methods, and questioned the value of his work. As far as his methods, Blass points out that Milgram provided an explanation of the experiments at the end, showed that the Learner was not shocked at all, and, in addition, asked the subjects what their feelings were in participating in them. The experiments' value continues to this day, not only because they continue to appear in textbooks, but in the final chapter, "Milgram's Legacy," Blass illustrates the numerous instances in which the Milgram obedience experiment had an effect on the way people viewed society, understood atrocities, or were used to teach ethics in society, law, or business. Further he mentions the influence his experiments have had in the arts, in influencing or inspiring numerous dramatic and creative works.
While he his best known for his obedience experiment, Milgram also carried out research that continued to examine human relations, though in experiments that were in a slightly different vein, not as stark, instead more "poetic," as Blass describes them: the lost-letter experiment (will people mail a letter to an organization they do not approve of); human connectedness (the "six degree of separation" phenomenon); another experiment that tried to find out if strangers would give up a seat on a subway, and "familiar stranger" research. "Familiar strangers" were people who saw each other on the train in their daily commute to work. People admitted sometimes wondering about the other people, but rarely bothered to speak to them. In a film he did on the subject, Milgram's narration included the lines:
"We studied the familiar strangers.
We spoke to them in station after station,
and this is what they told us.
As the years go by, familiar strangers
become harder to talk to.
The barrier hardens"
And we know-
if we were to meet one of these
strangers far from the station,
say, when we were abroad,
we would stop, shake hands, and
acknowledge for the first time that
we know each other.
But not here."
Milgram's remarks at the Catherine Genovese Memorial Conference (Catherine "Kitty" Genovese was the person who was stabbed to death in NYC in 1964 while thirty-eight neighbours watched from windows and did nothing) could apply to any of Milgram's experiments, experiments that examined human behavior and wondered what connections existed between humans:
"The case touched on a fundamental issue of the human condition, our primordial nightmare. If we need help, will those around us stand around and let us be destroyed or will they come to our aid? Are those other creatures there to help us sustain our life and values or are we individual flecks of dust just floating around in a vacuum?"
Blass's biography reminds us of the importance of Milgram's work and his experiments still echo today in the social isolation of the city and in the latest horrors in the headlines.