Origins & Early Life

Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was an American social psychologist who conducted controversial experiments on obedience in the 1960s during his professorship at Yale University. Milgram was influenced by the events of the Holocaust, especially the trial of Adolf Eichmann, in developing the experiment. After earning a PhD in social psychology from Harvard University, he taught at Yale, Harvard, and then for most of his career as a professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center, until his death in 1984. Milgram's obedience experiment was conducted in the basement of Linsly-Chittenden Hall at Yale University in 1961, three months after the start of the trial of German Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

The experiment unexpectedly found that a very high proportion of subjects would fully obey instructions to harm others, albeit reluctantly. Milgram first described his research in a 1963 article in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology and later discussed his findings in greater depth in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. Milgram's small-world experiment, while at the University of Iowa, led researchers to...

Enduring Legacy & Impact

The historical impact and works continue to influence the modern world.

Contemporary Figures & Related Historical Timelines

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