This social psychologist explored the darker aspects of human nature and authority, profoundly shaping our understanding of society. His work focused on examining the influence of social structures on individual behavior and how people act within groups and hierarchies. He investigated concepts such as obedience to authority and the phenomenon of 'familiar strangers,' revealing complex dynamics of human interaction. His experiments sparked critical debates about ethics and the nature of human society.
Stanley Milgram revolutionised our understanding of human nature with his classic research on obedience to authority - but the obedience experiments form just a small part of an extraordinary wealth of ground-breaking research that made him one of the most important social psychologists of our times.
In the 1960s Stanley Milgram carried out a series of experiments in which human subjects were given progressively more painful electro-shocks in a careful calibrated series to determine to what extent people will obey orders even when they knew them to be painful and immoral-to determine how people will obey authority regardless of consequences. These experiments came under heavy criticism at the time but have ultimately been vindicated by the scientific community. This book is Milgram′s vivid and persuasive explanation of his methods.