Psychology’s most shocking experiment revisited in upcoming Milgram obedience conference
5th July, 2013
None of us would inflict pain on someone else simply because someone in a position of authority told us to, right? Wrong, according to social psychologist Stanley Milgram.
In Milgram’s controversial 1961 Yale experiments most ordinary people obeyed instructions and gave what they believed were dangerous and perhaps even fatal electric shocks to a stranger they’d just met. Milgram’s shocking results and what many saw as his unethical methods created immediate and lasting controversy. It’s a controversy that continues today.
Now 50 years after they were first published, the legacy of social psychology’s most famous and controversial experiment is the topic of a world-first conference in Canada in August. And it’s a gathering that’s attracting Milgram experts from around the globe.
Nipissing University will host “Obedience to Authority, Milgram’s experiments 50 years” at its Muskoka campus in Bracebridge near Toronto from August 6-8. The program features Milgram experts and delegates from Russia, Australia, the UK, France, Italy, New Zealand, The Netherlands, as well as Canada and the US who will gather to reappraise the value and meaning of psychology’s most famous research.
“We’ve been overwhelmed by the both the amount of interest the conference has generated but also by the range of people presenting. We’ve got political scientists, ethicists, social psychologists, historians, sociologists, environmentalists, it’s fantastic,” Convenor Dr Nestar Russell of Nipissing University says.
Leading experts on Milgram include Professor Thomas Blass, Milgram’s biographer and author of The Man Who Shocked the World, Emeritus Professor Arthur Miller, author of The obedience experiments:A Case Study of Controversy in Social Science and Australian author Gina Perry whose book Behind the Shock Machine about the experiments and their effect on Milgram’s subjects will be published in the US and Canada by The New Press in September.
Academic interest in the research has continued unabated since its first publication 50 years ago and has been given fresh impetus by the recent public availability of Milgram’s papers and recordings at Yale where researchers have been able to examine original data that sheds new light on Milgram’s findings.
As a result, fresh controversy will fan debate at the conference. Does Milgram’s research deserve its reputation as the most important psychological research of the 20th century, or was it a form of scientific theatre with little relevance beyond the laboratory walls? Did Milgram capture an enduring truth about human nature or simply a transient moment in history?
Highlights of the program include Professor Clifford Stott’s presentation on his replication of the experiment for Britain’s BBC television, Professor Alex Voronov’s account of the influence of Milgram’s research in Russia, and Dr. Kenneth Worthy’s talk on the Obedience experiments and climate catastrophe.
Media inquiries : Contact Nestar Russell, Conference co-convenor, nestarr@nipissingu.ca