Describe and Evaluate the work of Milgram?

Milgram (1963) conducted a social psychology experiment to investigate to what level individuals would be obedient to an authority figure. Participants arrived in pairs and he instructed them that the experiment was to investigate the effects of punishment and learning. One participant was actually a confederate and was always assigned the role of the learner with the real participant always being the teacher. The teacher read word pairs to the learner, which the learner then repeated back to them. If the learner got a word wrong the teacher was meant to administer an electric shock as punishment, increasing in voltage with each incorrect answer (no shock was actually administered). If the teacher refused to administer the electric shock they were verbally prodded by the experimenter to continue with the experiment. They found that 65% of participants continued to the highest voltage (450v). Milgram (1963) concluded that ordinary people will follow the instructions of authority figures even if it results in harm to another innocent individual.One weakness of Milgram (1963) is that it is ethically dubious. They deceived participants regarding the true aim of the study and removed their right to withdraw by giving them verbal prompts to continue with the experiment. This may have influenced the participants behaviour, thus invalidating the results as it is not a valid measure of the participants independent actions. Additionally, these results cannot be ethically replicated to see if they are still accurate today. However, one strength of Milgram (1963) is that it has positive implications to explaining real life scenarios regarding why people follow authority figures instructions, even if it causes harm to another individual.