50th anniversary of Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments
Thursday, August 25, 2011 - 05:00
in Psychology & Sociology
(Medical Xpress) -- Stories of torture, corporate greed, fraud, and misconduct are regular features of daily news coverage. For years, psychological scientists have tried to understand why ordinary and decent people are driven to commit such atrocious acts. Much of what we know on this topic can be traced to the work of one man: Stanley Milgram. Fifty years ago, Milgram, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale University, began a famous and controversial series of experiments to test the boundaries of peoples obedience to authority and determine how far normal people would go in inflicting pain on others just because they were told to.