Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments

by Gina Perry

Overview

When social psychologist Stanley Milgram invited volunteers to take part in an experiment at Yale in the summer of 1961, none of the participants could have foreseen the worldwide sensation that the published results would cause. Milgram reported that fully 65 percent of the volunteers had repeatedly administered electric shocks of increasing strength to a man they believed to be in severe pain, even suffering a life-threatening heart condition, simply because an authority figure had told them to do so. Such behavior was linked to atrocities committed by ordinary people under the Nazi regime and immediately gripped the public imagination. The experiments remain a source of controversy and fascination more than fifty years later.

In Behind the Shock Machine, psychologist and author Gina Perry unearths for the first time the full story of this controversial experiment and its startling repercussions. Interviewing the original participants—many of whom remain haunted to this day about what they did—and delving deep into Milgram’s personal archive, she pieces together a more complex picture and much more troubling picture of these experiments than was originally presented by Milgram. Uncovering the details of the experiments leads her to question the validity of that 65 percent statistic and the claims that it revealed something essential about human nature. Fleshed out with dramatic transcripts of the tests themselves, the book puts a human face on the unwitting people who faced the moral test of the shock machine and offers a gripping, unforgettable tale of one man’s ambition and an experiment that defined a generation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781595589217
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	09/03/2013
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Gina Perry is a psychologist and writer. She wrote the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s award-winning Radio National documentary Beyond the Shock Machine. She lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Table of Contents

Note to Readers vii

Timeline of the Obedience Experiments ix

Prologue 1

Introduction 7

1 The Man Behind the Mirror 18

2 Going All the Way 39

3 The Limits of Debriefing 65

4 Subjects as Objects 95

5 Disobedience 125

6 The Secret Experiments 153

7 Milgram's Staff 182

8 In Search of a Theory 203

9 The Ethical Controversy 228

10 Milgram's Book 248

11 Representing Obedience 272

Conclusion 295

Appendix: List of Conditions 304

Acknowledgments 311

Notes 314

Additional Sources 340

Editorial Reviews

Perry puts one of the 20th century’s most contentious psychological studies under a microscope in this truly shocking history of the Milgram “obedience experiments,” examining their origins, methodologies, aftermath, and criticisms. Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram’s 1961 series of tests showed that 65% of participants would, under various circumstances, willingly administer high-voltage shocks to other participants. The findings made waves in scientific circles and in popular culture, and were used to account for atrocities like the Holocaust by demonstrating the disturbing ease with which seemingly normal people could be impelled to commit cruel acts. Perry, herself a psychologist, focuses largely on the means by which these devastating conclusions were drawn; in constructing her case, she draws from her own interviews with participants and recorded dialogue from the experiments. These details, combined with her journalistic approach, make the book easily accessible to laypersons—yet it’s incisive enough to appeal to other psychologists as well. Perry’s palpably unfavorable opinion of Milgram may leave some readers doubting the objectivity of her project, but there’s still much rewarding and entertaining material here (her discussion about the scientific experiment as a form of theater is particularly interesting). No matter how shocking, it seems that the show must go on. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for the Australian edition:

"Remarkable…Reading Behind the Shock Machine becomes an act of creative disobedience."
—The Australian

"There may be no studies of the twentieth century more haunting—or more revealing of human beings at their best and worst—than Stanley Milgram’s work. And here, finally, is a book that illuminates Milgram and his research subjects in riveting, compassionate detail."
—Deborah Blum, author of Love at Goon Park

"[A] provocative magnum opus… full of new info and insights, written with a literary flair so engaging and absorbing that I found it hard to put down."
—Thomas Blass, author of The Man Who Shocked the World

"An intriguing tale about science, ethics and storytelling."
—The Age

"An absorbing account of Stanley Milgram, his subjects, and the continuing quest to understand what it means to be human."
—David Baker, director, Archives of the History of American Psychology

From the Publisher

The famed Stanley Milgram psychology experiments shocked the world by suggesting that a majority of humans are capable of cruelty when under the orders of an authority figure. In this book, a secret history of the experiments is revealed, debunking Milgram's most sensational claims. The experiments, conducted at Yale University in the early 1960s, have long been a staple of psychology textbooks. The setup is dramatic but simple: Subject A sits in a room with a "shock machine" and is instructed to shock an unseen Subject B if he fails a simple memory test. The study was advertised as collecting data on how punishment affects learning and memory, but in reality, Milgram was not shocking Subject B, instead carefully monitoring the behavior of Subject A. The experiment's surprising results indicated that 65 percent of the subjects administered shocks even after the actor playing Subject B screamed in pain or even complained of a heart condition. In a postwar environment still reeling from the horror of the Holocaust, the connection between the Milgram experiments and the behavior of the Nazis brought questions of human behavior and obedience into the national spotlight. However, much like the experiments themselves, Milgram's published results were replete with omissions and inconsistencies, casting doubt on his methodology and ethics. Perry, a psychologist who first presented her research in an award-winning Australian documentary, spent several years interviewing original participants, combing through archived transcripts of the experiments, analyzing unpublished data and meeting with psychologists who worked with Milgram at that time. The result is a passionate text that humanizes the subjects and provides nuanced, provocative context to the experiments. The author asks profound questions about what truths, if any, can be elicited from analysis of human nature in a constructed environment. It's about time someone wrote this book.

Kirkus Reviews

10/01/2013
Psychologist Perry digs deep into the story behind psychologist Stanley Milgram's famous "obedience experiments," which led to the reformation of American Psychiatric Association ethics codes and inspired several fictional and reality TV programs. Here Perry interviews subjects involved in the experiments, who, believing they were participating in research on the effects of punishment on learning, were instructed to administer electric shocks to other participants taking memory tests. Many of the unwitting subjects were traumatized, thinking they had actually killed the other participant, and some are still haunted and blame Milgram for their actions. Perry uncovers more than 20 variations of the experiment and describes Milgram's disdainful and harsh views toward subjects who proved to be obedient. She points out that the original experiment occurred in 1961, almost simultaneously with the trial of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann. Perry prompts readers to consider several questions: Are people always responsible for their actions? Why are the subjects of Milgram's experiments more sympathetic than Nazis? Why is it acceptable to cite Milgram's experiment but not the research done in concentration camps? Is it because Milgram's subjects didn't harm anyone (even though they thought they did)? VERDICT Recommended to anyone in the psychology field or those studying ethics. Readers interested in World War II will learn from the experiment's parallels with Nazi atrocities.—Chrissy Spallone, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Lib.

Library Journal