Obedience is a part of social life and only a man living in isolation does not require any sort of authority. According to Milgram, obedience was very important to study during the time after the holocaust in which millions of innocent people were systematically slaughtered efficiently. It was only possible to carry out these inhumane policies if a large number of people obeyed the orders. The history of man shows that many crimes have been committed in the name of obedience, much more than in rebellion. The German officers were brought up with a strict sense of obedience. The general procedure of the experiment is as follows, a subject is ordered to deliver electric shocks to an actor and the shocks are labeled to the extent of severe shock, danger. When the subjects administer the shock it is a case of obedience and when he refuses to that is the act of disobedience, these are recorded. The subjects are told that we do not know much about the effect of punishment on learning hence the experiment seeks to find out how much punishment effects learning.

The shock generator is a horizontal switch with voltage designations ranging from 15 to 450 volts. The subject is told to administer a shock to the learner each time he gives a wrong response. The subject is also asked to move one level up each time. After the 300 level shock, the learner pounds on the wall and in the case of no response the subject normally turns to the experimenter who tells the subject to take it as a wrong response and administer a shock. The experimenter feedback was used if subjects did not want to go on. There were in a sequence of “prods”. A subject who does not go through completely with the experiment is called a defiant subject and someone who proceeds to administer all shock levels is an obedient subject. The results of the experiment show that most people thought the experiment was real and in the post experimental interviews the subject rated mostly that the most potent shocks were extremely painful to the learner. A lot of subjects were nervous about administering large shocks. Some even broke into fits of nervous laughter which seemed bizarre and out of place. Overall, some subjects refused to go beyond a certain level whereas some defied the experiment right from the start.

However, some people did administer potent shocks, 26 obeyed the orders till the end out of the 40 subjects. Most of the people were stressed about administering shocks. The results show that it is moralistically wrong to hurt other people but in the face of authority 26 people administered severe shocks. The people carrying out the experiment were also shocked with the display of obedience. The variables like proximity to the victim affected the subjects as well. Another effect was the extraordinary tension generated by the procedures. Even though the subjects would not have been punished for failure to continue with the experiment, most of them still chose to continue, even while under great emotional stress.

Stanley Milgram in his experiment shows that in the face of an authority people are willingly to go to extents that they may not otherwise. Even though it may be against our moral values which we have been brought up with. It looks like in this experiment authority superseded the moral beliefs, however, we should be careful about making hasty generalizations. Although the experiment shows that people were willing to administer severe shocks, it does not mean that generally authority has such an effect on most people put in such situations because a study of 40 people is not conclusive. The people were also deceived hence we cannot ever be sure how they would have acted if they had more knowledge. However, the example of concentration camps and other such numerous examples in history show that people tend to obey to authority. The variables like the proximity to the learner also played a huge part in the experiment, the effect of such variables has not been completely considered

It is an important study on human behavior and obedience and shows that people tend to obey in the face of an authority because somehow the responsibility seems to shift from them to the experimenter. However, the experiment should not be used to come up with a universal principle applicable to all people.